those little things. launching a chain reaction.
we never really think about these things - how the action of one moment, usually a trifling, pettily mundane one, alters things, that impacts everything else. you delayed your flight so you could sort some ittle little thing out. two days later, before you leave, its too late. war is on your doorstep. what to do. there’s never any point saying oh but if only this, if only that. Too late its over. this realization doesn’t tend to sink in till its too late..
It works the other way around though too, doesn’t it?
What about all those times you could have altered your plans slightly and inadvertently ended up in a difficult situation… but you didn’t change your plans? (And so you’ll never know what might have gone terribly wrong but didn’t).
If you start to think about all the small actions you have taken in your life which have ended up having massive consequences, you can drown in the prospect of how different your life might be in an endless number of alternative realities.
There are so many small actions in your life you might have undertaken (but didn’t) which might have changed the direction of your life in a massive way (but didn’t) either for better or for worse.
Indeed, I’ve always thought the most depressing thing about comparing your life to the lives of the rest of the potentially endless alternative versions of you, is that you come out as being very, very average.
I think that was my point..! duh.. i didn’t explicity mention it goes both ways, i should have thought it was obvious.
and also…who said anything about this being about ‘comparing’ some one’s life to another? really some people are so competitive. this sort of thing applies to everyone’s life. and of course it happens both ways.. you miss the bus and it blew up 2 seconds later. i think i was going to put that in the post as well but didnt get around to it. i was referring to a friend of mine who got evacuated from the Tube on 7 July, only to get onto that ill-fated bus, luckily for her she got off at the stop just before.
and i wasn’t pointing it out because i think people ought to go around thinking ooh if i do this, if i do that, of course you cant do that cos you cant live like that.
but anyway - i still refuse to accept that i am very very average. whilst you may be some very very average character, i certainly am not. ha! not in this realm anyway - hee hee, like Danny Wallace, i could proclaim myself king too.. !
Err… I was indulging in the fantasy that there are a potentially infinite number of alternative realities.
In each reality “you” have made a different choice at some point during your life, sometimes with slight and sometimes with huge consequences.
Because there’s an infinite string of “alternative yous” I think you can rest assured that you’re somewhere in the middle of them. Exactly in the middle, actually.
the mathematical me doesn’t compute that last comment