How fucking pissed have I been today! I mean damnit, of all the USB drives to have lost, it had to be my navy-blue, semi-transparent drive that holds all my demotivational posters on it. I had over 300 of them which took months to collect from all over the great Internet cloud. There were other things on that drive, too, though the demotivational posters are most likely the most valuable items on there… <sigh> I would’ve pulled my hair out over this if I had any, but oh well – maybe I’ll take it out on some expecting warriors in UT2004 later this evening… provided I can get out of the stranglehold that “Sims 3” has over me.
Yes I, umm, purchased the game the day it came out and as expected it is crack on crack. My goodness, it is SO addicting I want to slit my throat for thinking that I wouldn’t have gotten hooked, but I’m sure that deep down my entire being was like “You got hooked on the first and second game… it will happen again, foo.” And sure enough, it did. Fortunately, my boy Eddy got me off the crack to watch an E3 video he linked me to – and thanks to him, I’m now able to type this fine entry to you fine people for your fine eyes to read. I won’t start talking about Sims 3 because if I do I won’t be able to stop and next thing you know, this entry sudden cuts off at a random point because I ended up double-clicking the sims3.exe in my Games window, which is sitting minimized, but the little blue trophy in my taskbar is staring at me, calling my name oh so softly, asking “May you kindly…?” Ahhhh, the addiction! It’s strong!
Alright, enough!!! <unloads a whole clip of bullets from an assault rifle into a Tank> Better, much better… <reloads> Now then, I wanted to discuss an interesting subject tonight, that subject being parallel universes and you and me. I’ve read quite a bit of material on alternate history so it’s something that I can talk on, perhaps not so much on the scientific plausibility of there being a multiverse, but definitely on the various hypothetical scenarios that would be possible if a single event was changed in history, whether that history be on a global or personal scale. One reason that the theory of a multiverse is tied to this is because of the concept of paradoxes, which would be a reason why time travel wouldn’t be possible in nature – because if there’s only a single universe then obviously time travel cannot occur, or if it is, nature already has “temporal protection” in place so the past cannot be altered.
But in any event, these types of hypothetical scenarios are great mind benders and can give you a greater appreciation of the timeline we are presently in today. A great example that’s used frequently to get newcomers to better understand alternate history and parallel universes, think of World War II and it’s outcome: the Nazi’s get crushed, Japan gets nuked and the Allies come home the victors. However, what if Hitler, the small-mustached man with the Aryan plan, was successfully assassinated before the Nazi’s began down their one-way path to defeat (namely, when Hitler thought it was a good idea to trigger a two-front war by declaring war on the Russians). That’s what one novel, Fox on the Rhine, plays out, but instead of having you read that, how about this simple question: What if the Nazi’s won World War II? As you can imagine, our world today would be VERY different, and I’m sure a number of us that simply exist would not in that world because one or both of your parents may have been killed by the Nazi’s as they invaded (or nuked the crap out of) America in the 1950s or 60s. Or another popular one: What if American Civil War had the Confederates be the victors instead of the Union? With the CSA (Confederate States of America) and USA side-by-side – and blacks still heavily persecuted in ways that makes today’s racial relations seem like paradise – who knows how many more wars there could have been on top of WWI and WWII (assuming they’d still occur – the butterfly effect would see to that).
If you sat down and really thought about it, there are a lot of worlds where your life would be very different provided one key event in history was changed just slightly (lets not even dive into one awesome What If: Jesus not crucified? OOHHHHHHH SNAP!!!). How about we take this idea another direction: at the personal level. There are many events that mold us into who we are today, from our childhood through high school and past old-age. If one were to think about it, it’s conceivable that you could think of a number of key events in your life that, if they were altered or didn’t occur altogether, you would be a very different person when compared to who you are today. For me, there are many many points that I can refer to that, if they were changed, I’d be very different. When I was born I had a cleft lip and palate which was subsequently repaired when I was around 6-months old or so (I still have the Brooklyn Union paper that documented the procedure). Following that, my parents put me into special programs at Brooklyn College when I was very young so I could learn to speak and everything, as the cleft lip and palate would’ve stunted that part of me if I didn’t go there. SO, for me, the question is “What If I never got the surgery to repair the cleft lip and palate?” The circumstances behind such a scenario aren’t too hard to imagine: perhaps they were hard on cash and couldn’t afford it. But the end-results of that lapse would be certainly dramatic on me as a developing young boy: odds are good the initial friends I made in pre-school and lower school wouldn’t have been my friends; the kind of teasing a child like that would have to tolerate is probably unbearable, so social skills and emotional development would’ve been very altered. By the time I’d be four or five I would’ve been so different I’d have a hard time recognizing myself, let alone how I’d be later in life.
Another scenario that I’ve played out several times in my life that is easily one of the biggest events in my life: my being left back in pre-K. Yes, it’s possible, and for me it was possible because back when I was three my language skills weren’t good enough to warrant my moving with the rest of the class… SO they kept me back a year. However, because of this I met the guys who would ultimately become by best friends in life. In addition, because of that I met everyone that I know today, from lower school up to college and beyond. In addition, many extracurricular activities and interests that I have today were planted in my mind by others (directly or indirectly) in one form or another, this subject included. So What If I was not left back? Well… that list can go on for a long time… a LOOOOOOOOOOOONG time – it’s one of the few personal What If’s that I actually extrapolated out to a good couple of years past middle school, though beyond that it’s a complete toss-up, and even the stuff within what I covered can be subject to change.
So what to take away? If you thought about all that was said regarding the past and how small changes can have big effects, you probably have more questions than answers. I know, cuz I’ve been there, and it’ll keep your mind occupied for a long time unless you dismiss the idea of alternate history as nonsense. But if you have an open mind, it’s a great thought experiment! The implications of such concepts, though, run far deeper than the hypothetical: it can be used to help govern how you operate your life.
And with that, I must call it a night – all this typing is really starting to drain me. Or perhaps that’s just the midnight oil burning its last drop. Or the thoughts of my missing USB drive has finally drained the last ounces of energy from me. Whatever the case, I’m sure there’s a parallel universe that addresses all of them, along with the one that I’ve decided to go with tonight.
