Do you ever think about the possibilities of alternate realities?
Have you ever considered the idea that your life could have been a very different proposition save for a different choice at a critical junction?
A very popular genre of storytelling, the thought of parallel universes existing out there just beyond the edges can present any number of ways that themes and ideas can be explored and examined.
The Phillip K Dick novel, The Man in the High Castle, looks at a version of what could have happened had the Second World War been won by the Axis powers, China Mieville’s The City and the City has two cities existing next to each other but never the twain should meet, and the TV show Sliders has people jumping between any number of possible alternative realities.
In each case, the story that’s told can examine so very many things but at it’s very core, that which keeps the whole thing moving, is the idea of the road not travelled.
Look back at your life and there’s something that you regret missing out doing. Were you laying in bed after a company do and the hot girl from work in the room next to you knocks on the wall but you weren’t sure so you wait, thinking if she knocks again, you’ll swing by her room and see what happens. She doesn’t, so neither do you and, just like that, gone. That time you were offered the chance to stay after a gig to attend an aftershow party, but there it was, the rational mind that said ‘You’ve got to be in work early tomorrow’ and again, the evening takes a very different turn.
Now imagine that on that particular day, when whatever it was that you chose to walk away from the first time, you turn towards it. Rather than laying in bed thinking, ‘Did she really knock on the wall?’ you have the chance to find out. That night could have been the start f the greatest relationship in your life. The aftershow party could have led you to meeting people that could have ended up with your life heading in a very different direction – maybe even working with the band – and the greys of the old job become the bright colours of the new.
Alternate realities could mean the choices we made could be undone and re-examined allowing us to reach out to what could have been.
But we could also have gotten it right the first time.
You go into the room of the hot girl from work, have an evening of the wild enthusiasm, only for the truth of your deed meaning that she has to divorce her husband and because of that, you both have to leave the company and she blames you for everything. You go to the after party and have a blast but get fired because you weren’t paying attention at work the next day and a mistake leads to the loss of millions of pounds from the company value. No job, means no money, means you lose your house and you end up living under a bridge.
Any choice that we make along the road of our lives could spawn any number of alternatives. No doubt there are versions out there where we’re doing amazingly well in everything that we do, being the very best version of who we are, but that will always mean that there’s a version that always took the wrong path.
So how would you know that the life you have isn’t the perfect one? Could you put your life at risk for the chance that there’s a better version?
As with all storytelling, the idea of alternative universes can let your mind explore all the different ways things could play out but the thought of being able to walk into another version of the world can give us wish fulfilment as well as warnings.
All the choices that we make mean that we end up who we are. By changing any single point and moving to a different version of the world, we aren’t going to end up as us any more.
The idea of walking into a different world can be appealing but doing all we can to make the best of the one universe we’re in is surely more important.
Owen Elgie 