10 Epic Lessons Derren Brown Taught Us About Life
9. The Future May Not Be Unwritten
Take this point with a pinch of salt. Derren Brown admits he does not have psychic ability, and cannot see into the future.
He can, however, influence it.
There has been plenty of speculation about his future predicting episodes; as always with Derrens unbelievable feats. David Tennant made an astonishing prediction of future events on an episode of Trick Or Treat, following Brown's instructions. Using the alleged psychic ability of automatic writing, the Timelord himself writes down two news items that would appear three days later in The Guardian newspaper.
Did he switch the envelopes David had written in? Did he know the subjects that would appear beforehand, and suggestively implant these into David Tennant's mind? How would he know?
What We Learnt...
Whatever the illusion at hand, the fact of the matter is that Derren always knows what is going to happen. Whether it means predicting the lottery (which was, obviously, a trick), or knowing the first song a person will play in their head (because he's planted it subliminally) - the fact is, he knows.
Why? Because he made it happen.
Our lesson from this can be perceived on a somewhat deeper level. Instead of living by the habitual mantra of 'good things come to those who wait', why not action the appropriate changes, and actually make them happen? We are in control of our own future. Avoid making any gargantuan bets at the races just yet, though.