Was just going to say that this idea would make a great premise for an anthology-like TV show, only to realise it’s basically just Fantasy Island.
I mean, take this:
I’d call my wife:
“Honey, there was a f***ing genie. I’m at my ex-girlfriend’s house. It’s a long story. Yes, her current husband is here, too. What? No, we haven’t done anything fishy. At least I don’t think. I don’t remember anything. Everyone is looking at me a bit weird, though. Look, I’m not sure what happened. No, I’m not drunk. Yes, I may need to see a doctor about these blackouts. I know you’re worried. I love you too. What? Yeah, I’ll be home in about an hour. Sure, I’ll say hi to them from you.”
Then I’d go home, see a shrink, and it would presumably be fine.
My conscious desires are beyond the easily-achievable-without-magic, and I like to think I’m fairly self-actualised, so I don’t see the downside.
The rest of the world will, though…
Never mind the genie - I don’t trust my subconscious. That place is a mess.
And sure, you say we’ll want what we get, but as noted what we want is often the last thing we ought to have.
This thread needs an expert opinion on whether there even is such a thing as a subconscious mind. I’m pretty sure that the Freudian version, at least, isn’t exactly cutting edge.
BTW, I’m a bit confused about the depth-layering notion of desires here. There is what you want the most. And then there is your deepest desire. Somehow, the idea seems to be that the deepness trumps the mostness.
I mean, what I want the most genuinely is a ton of money. There are no ifs or buts about it. But now I’m supposed to fear the genie, because I may have a deep desire to **** my mother? There is no way that this desire is bigger than the desire for money. If there’s a mother desire, it size XS. The money desire is XL.
The deepest desire is probably something very deep, and very small. Like, some food. That’s been in there since a second after I was born. So I meet a genie, and all I get is lunch?
There’s an old Russian joke- (or at least that’s how it was told to me)
A Genie appears to Boris the peasant and offers him a wish. Boris thinks, and says “My neighbor Sergi has the best cow in the land. It is big and healthy, gives so much milk and so many calves…” “Say no more” says the Genie. “You want a cow even better!” Boris look at the Genie incredulously. “What? No! I want Segi’s cow to die!”
We all hope that we would wish for the cow. But are you sure you don’t really want his cow to die?
And if you got a sheep in a negligee and a tub of butterscotch pudding, sure you could just walk away even if you admitted it was what you secretly wanted, but living with the knowledge of your inner venality or banality… That’s rough.
See, that’s why I want to clear up what sort of criteria we’re dealing with here. Is it most secret or most embarrassing wish now? Rather than greatest or deepest? How do those relate?
Sure, maybe I secretly do fancy sheep in lace underwear. So that’s my secret wish. It’s also my embarrassing wish. But I don’t exactly desperately yearn for them. They don’t occupy my every waking thought, or my dreams at night. They’re just, like, a medium-sized thing, between the free lunch and the giant pile of money. Medium-sized, and medium-levels of repressed. So unless there is a criterion of max embarrassment involved, I don’t get why I should suddenly have a living room full of sheep.
Or is the criterion here more, like, maximum danger and illicitness?. Like wanting to **** a twelve year old? But even the most enthusiastic diddler of choir boys in the entire Catholic Church probably still wants a ginormous pile of money more than he wants choir boys. And his desire for sheep in undergarments is probably more deeply buried.
Don’t ask me where twelve year old sheep, who look like my mother, and are dressed like Catholic priests, fit into this.
You are permitted a “woo hoo.” No threads, though.
Thing is, if your supposed deepest darkest desire is the butterscotch pudding orgy with 12 choirboys and a sheep, or whatever your personal version of that is, you could make that happen for yourself if you took the trouble. Prostitutes exist. Fetlife exists. Going out for a drive and never coming back exists.
What I mean is, if you’re fantasizing about that butterscotch pudding orgy all day, and then you go home to your boring old wife every night to fall asleep in front of the television, how exactly is the pudding orgy your deepest desire? If it really were your deepest desire wouldn’t you do something about it? Nobody puts a gun to your head every day and forces you to go home to your boring wife. If you’re sick of your boring old wife then divorce her boring old ass. You need a genie for this? If you really need a genie to dump your wife and dive into that vat of pudding, then how committed to loving pudding orgies are you, exactly?
Given the parameters, I’d be afraid I’d get what I deserve. Not pretty.
“There is a school of thought, a heresy from the madhouse of heresies in the ninth century, that says God is good and is in control of every individual thing that happens, every event, but that unfortunately, the devil controls the timing.”
–Norman Rush "Matings
So, maybe the Genie decides what we get, but may not be able to favorably control when we get it.
"The sun was broiling hot, red spots floated before his eyes, the air
was quivering on the floor of the quarry, and in the shimmer it seemed that
the ball was dancing in place like a buoy on the waves. He went past the
bucket, superstitiously picking up his feet higher and making sure not to
step on the splotches. And then, sinking into the rubble, he dragged himself
across the quarry to the dancing, winking ball. He was covered with sweat
and panting from the heat, and at the same time, a chill was running through
him, he was shuddering, as if he had a bad hangover, and the sweet chalk
dust gritted between his teeth. He had stopped trying to think. He just
repeated his litany over and over: “I am an animal, you see that. I don’t
have the words, they didn’t teach me the words. I don’t know how to think,
the bastards didn’t let me learn how to think. But if you really are …
all-powerful … all-knowing … then you figure it out! Look into my heart.
I know that everything you need is in there. It has to be. I never sold my
soul to anyone! It’s mine, it’s human! You take from me what it is I want
… it just can’t be that I would want something bad! Damn it all, I can’t
think of anything, except those words of his …'HAPPINESS FOR EVERYBODY,
FREE, AND NO ONE WILL GO AWAY UNSATISFIED!”
-Roadside Picnic.
No, I’ve read too many plots in which this kind of thing goes wrong.
I was kinda thinking that those of us who accept the genie’s proposition get INCREDIBLE SEX with the partner of our choice, every day, for forever.
So what if after reading this, I suddenly decide I want to make infinite wishes that come true and can be requested at any time and that I get to choose properly?
A pothead finds a strange-looking old oil lamp in the trash and rubs it to clean it up a bit when suddenly a genie popped out of it. “Congratulations, you freed me from my captivity! I will grant you three wishes for releasing me!” The pothead does not think twice and says “OK, for my first wish – I want a never ending blunt made from the finest Acapulco Gold weed!” And poof he has a fat 6 inch blunt in his hand. He takes a few tokes and is delighted by the extremely nice flavor and high, sits back and relaxes.
The genie reminds him “Hey, you have two more wishes, remember?” “Oh, yeah…let me see…I’ll have two more of these!”