What Am I Up To In A Parallel Universe?

Something that I often think about is what alternate versions of myself may be doing in parallel universes. Assuming they exist, and assuming they exist in infinite variations from slight to severe, it’s often fun – or a little depressing – to consider my own path through life, and find points of divergence where I may have chosen a different path. Of course, with low self-esteem, it’s often tempting to portray my current self as one of the least successful or meaningfully defined versions of myself in these scenarios, but that’s only because I’m characterising other potential versions of myself as the embodiment of success in one of my potential paths.

The first and most obvious consideration is often the cruellest; what if I’d succeeded in establishing myself as an author by now? I’m quick to add that this could still happen at any time; many successful authors only found success when they were well older than I am now, and I’m not about to give up. (I should probably start before I give up, right?) But a part of me always desired to be a prodigy. Probably borne of no small amount of arrogance which I held before going to university, I initially dreamed of being a successful author at a young age. But looking back on some of my earliest short stories now, I can only wonder how that would translate to a more successful, published version of my 26 year old self. Would I be looking back on my earliest novels in alarm? Or would I have failed to learn some of the most crucial lessons I learned during university, and written stories of a lower quality than I’m now able to, should I apply myself?

Here’s something different: As I approached my late teens, I became fascinated with history, and this fascination feels like untapped potential to this day. What if I’d gone to university for a historical course instead of creative writing? How would my life path have been altered? Well for one thing, I’d have a different group of friends. I don’t do a good job of keeping in touch with my uni friends, but I’d be sad to have never met them. I also find it amusing that I don’t know what the average day-to-day life of a historian is even like, so it’s a little difficult to ruminate on where my life would now be. Maybe I’d combine my love of writing with my love of history and write historical fiction.

Anyone who knows me knows that my biggest hobby by far is gaming. I’m not only interested in playing videogames, but in how they’re made. What if I’d opted to put all my eggs in the game design basket? What kind of games would I make? Well, most games are made by teams, so it’s perhaps more apt to imagine myself joining a well-known developer studio after years of working my way through the industry. But, woof, I can smell the ignorance coming off of that last sentence. By all accounts, the games industry is a cutthroat workplace with all its layoffs and contractual positions. Even in this daydream what-if scenario, it’s hard to imagine myself settling somewhere and making a name for myself. With very rare exception, that’s just not how that works. All the same, I’d like to think I’d be working on some cool collectathon platforming levels, or maybe assisting in the world-building of some grand MMORPG.

Of course, these all assume I’m going down one of the paths that still interest me. Once upon a time, though, I was interested in drumming, and while I only had a few informal lessons, I was told that I had potential. Assuming this was the truth and not merely the platitudes of my sister’s then-boyfriend to keep my interest, perhaps there’s a universe where I’m touring the country in a rock band? It’s… difficult to picture, but if the multiverse is truly infinite, as I’ve arbitrarily decided at the top of this blog post, then there’s also a universe when I’m a purple elephant tamer in the employ of the grand galactic army, so…

Grounding our feet firmly back in reality for the moment, let’s stop looking at potential presents and dive back into the past. I’ve already documented on this blog post about how cause-and-effect fascinates me, how the butterfly effect affects everything we are. So who would I be if I’d been enrolled in a different secondary school? Our teenage years are some of our most formative, and the friends we make are central to that transformation. My interest in writing was instilled from a young age, but not my interest in history. What interest might I have picked up if I’d been introduced to a different school, a different group of people? I’d be very interested to talk to that version of myself… but not to be that version of myself. I made friends at my secondary school that I wouldn’t trade any opportunity in the world for.

To finish things off, I’ll end on the reminder that yes, it’s fun to think about the different versions of myself that could be out there – assuming multiverse theory is true, which is quite the assumption. And it’s tempting to measure myself against them. But at the end of the day, they’re all me. All people I could have been, but also people I could still be, if I truly wanted. I still have time to be a novelist, and while it may be more difficult to change tracks now, I could still try to break into the field of history – although I certainly have no plans. I could be a teacher, or an artist, or a cook.

Or I could just be myself. And be a little of all these things.

But I would have to learn how to cook…

I Should Probably Say Hi

It’s been nearly a year since I posted an update to this blog, so instead of sitting here like Spongebob trying to figure out what to write beyond the word “the”, I should probably crack on and provide a general update about my life. After all, this is not only a blog, but part of my Tombstone Project, a series of memoirs written during the years of my life instead of a hazy recollection at the end of them. If it’s 2084 and you’re reading this, hi there! I hope the planet’s slightly less on fire these days.

The reason I hesitate to provide an update for my life at this point is that I don’t wish to repeat myself too many times with “nothing much has changed”. My life – at least, in macro – remains in a sort of state of stasis. I haven’t met anyone new, moved anywhere or changed jobs since we last spoke. In fact, I recently received a badge for being at my current job for five years, something which was celebrated more by the automated system which generated the badge request and sent the thing than the recipient of it. You often hear about how five years is a sizable gauge of time in which to measure the movements of one’s life and personality, but the only thing that was really different about me five years ago was that I had a second job.

I don’t mean to be too down in the dumps about all of this. After all, it’s not like my day-to-day doesn’t have meaningful joyful moments, or that being the same person I was five years ago means I’m not a person worth being. In fact, quite the opposite – I think the fact that I’ve changed so little in so long is because I’m too comfortable. Beyond psychoanalysing myself and oversharing, the simplest and most innocent reason for my current state of being is because I’m too ambivalent about furthering my life path. But that’s not necessarily something I’m trying to solve by sharing it with you, it’s just something I felt necessary to put out there to contextualise the lack of change in my life.

As for world events, yes, I’m watching on in horror as the government continues to strip back anti-COVID measures. That “light at the end of the tunnel” post really didn’t age as well as I’d have liked it to. I’ve avoided it so far (to the best of my knowledge), although the rest of my family aren’t quite as lucky. Still, it’s not quite the scare it once was, being vaccinated and all that. I should probably free myself of the restrictions I place on myself – I’ve not seen most of my friends in years at this point and practically everyone thinks I’m absurd to still be hermiting it up as much as I am. I just can’t get it out of my head, the whole action-and-consequence thing, the butterfly effect of it all. As someone who’s mostly fine getting their social interaction virtually through text and voice chat and videogames, I hate the thought of putting anyone at risk – even the tiniest percentage of risk – because I wanted to go on a day out. But then, the rational person reading this would be quick to point out the countless other avenues in which we put each other at risk by pursuing leisure, and suddenly I sound mad. But even as I write this, I’m watching cases rise again…

I want to add a little bit about the Russian invasion of Ukraine here, although I feel shitty doing so. In the context of a personal update about my life, including my reaction to these events feels like a selfish indulgence, because they don’t directly affect me. I have the privilege to sit here and talk about how awful it all is without having to deal with the horrors of it personally. And yet, it has affected me, as it’s affected all of us. I can think of nothing more vile than the outright murder of so many innocent people. It weighs heavily on my mind. In the earliest days, the weight of that horror was accompanied with outright fear as to the ramifications of this invasion on the rest of the world, and likely still should be. In time, of course, I became desensitised to that fear, partially through my own making, for the sake of my own sanity. But the weight of the horror is still there. If a future version of me is reading this, I hope that I am reminded of it. It’s not an event that can un-happen, and should not be forgotten.

I didn’t intend to make this blog post a marching out of all the horrors of the last year, but if I’m being pragmatic, it’s not been a year of much else, in terms of landmark events. As I alluded to earlier, though, my day-to-day has moments of joy and love, and I want to counterbalance with that. I may not have any major life milestones to give a tour of here, but that doesn’t mean I’m not smiling and laughing plenty at the myriad of little things which make up the tapestry of meaning in our lives. I felt that I should mention that. Because even against this backdrop of problems too large to be changed by everyday people like me, we still live.

I don’t mean to keep my life in stasis forever. I’ve got some stuff to work through – that thing about oversharing comes to mind again – but five years from now, I should be able to do that look-back-and-go-wow thing. I’ll probably even write a blog post about it. You’ll see. And I hope you’ll be there!