so much for existing.
myspace entry - march 11, 2004
[i know it's long; i'm not asking anyone to read it]
ever had "what if" fever? you know, when you think of one thing that could've happened, & all of a sudden you're spiraling down into an ever-deepening pool of "what if this..what if that.." & you question your present life, & you wonder how you could've been different, or would you be the same, or would you have the friends you have now, or would you even be alive? then you start getting into parallel/alternate universes, & you wonder what the you at the several crossroads in your life is doing right now? you took this path & you ended up in that universe, you took the other one & you're out doing something totally different in another universe. i have this theory where despite the alternate choices you have made in whatever far out universes there are out there, there are times when inevitably you will be thinking/speaking/doing the same thing as yourself right now, & that is the feeling you call "deja vu." but, you say, why is deja vu a feeling you've "somehow had before?" it's because these universes don't necessarily function with the same time system as your current self's universe; that is, space-time anomalies exist & so you can have the feeling of "memory" though that memory is happening at the exact same time, somewhere out there, with the other you in the other universe. of course it wouldn't be happening at "the exact same time" if the time systems were different in each respective universe, but you get the drift..everything is relative.
anyway, i was thinking that some days i would like to actually switch physical selves with these other bodies of mine. put in less sci-fi terms, sometimes i want to experience what i would've experienced had i made a different choice at some crucial (or seemingly irrelevant or inconsequential) point in my lifetime! wouldn't that be cool? one usually thinks of the butterfly effect as an example of this; however, that movie demonstrates only a small scratch into the surface of chaos theory. for instance, only ashton kutcher's world that surrounds him is affected, and not even that much. the same characters are present instead of completely different ones, & nothing drastic really happens, such as nuclear war or drought or famine or something. anyway, that wasn't the point of the movie. it was supposed to be subjective, with a focus only on him & his life, as opposed to society's or the world's.
what exactly am i getting at? i'm always in this never-ending search of self. i feel pretty comfortable with who i am now: my beliefs, my values, my character, my projection of inner self, my eradication of most former superficialities, my insistence on staying UNinfluenced, etc. but sometimes i wonder.. if certain events (i'm not implying anything in particular, i swear) had never happened, would i still be this way? i mean, is there such a thing as fate & predetermination? or is it the opposite.. do we choose who we become? are we really independent selves? does environment or will or instinct affect us at all? if that is the case, we would have nothing & no one to blame for whatever regrets or mishaps occur as a result of a lapse of judgment, a loss of control, a "not me" moment. doesn't feel so good to be in control of your life, does it?
i am yet to find out whether i myself choose the paths i walk, or if some higher entity selects them for me, or even if that being randomly rolls mystic dice or throws magic darts or closes his eyes & points out a destiny, as if gambling with my fate. if it were the latter case, wouldn't that SUCK? so much for a loving god, right? it's like, no matter how "in control" of your life you are, no matter how orderly you carry out your day, no matter how you conduct your routine habits, no matter how excessively obsessive compulsive you are, there's still a chance that your world will one day, maybe soon, end up totally upside down, and of course there is nothing you can do to stop it (even if it may seem that way). i mean i had no idea i would get into one of the world's worst car accidents & come out with barely a scratch. i couldn't stop the car from wrecking, the fence from denting, the window from bashing into my head. & yet i can say that i did have control of the situation because i was able to stifle the pain that WAS present as well as keep my emotions & shock factor in check. i mean i guess my stable ass mind helped my body & thought processes a lot, because the next day i was up & at it, driving a completely different car, physically & emotionally unaffected, as well as having no nightmares at all, as other accident-survivors have testified (one woman said to me: "i couldn't sleep for days..i kept replaying it over & over in my head for the next few months..i couldn't stop crying.."). & that is the story of how i got my civic (which isn't the point, but oh well). but this story didn't seem to affect me in any way, so let's move on to another example.
i moved to antioch at the start of my senior year, which is basically the most drastic change (not really) someone could say at this point in life. (there are other things i won't get into..yet. let's just say i'm a bit more jaded than a lot of people because of things i've experienced. i'm not being overdramatic..it's true.) funny how i felt funny, people looked funny, the air smelled funny, & everything seemed to spin around in weird circles of color & sound (figuratively). anyway, i don't want to get into the whole thing, but this place was a whole different environment; i was uprooted from my semi-ghetto-suburban area, into wannabe-ghetto-honkyish-neosuburbia. anyway, lots of change, blah blah blah, but i think this place has changed me for the better. i mean, over here there are no corrupting influences, no racism, no sophistication or any traces of a city vibe (sorry guys, it's true. how do you NOT know the word "hifey" till this year? what's up with the slow ass fashion? what's up with using the word "dating?"). it's kinda like that movie, where tad hamilton goes to that country chick's small town, back to the "roots," & ends up liking it. anyway.. what if i had stayed in vallejo? would it be any different? would i still be the ignorant ASS i used to be? would i still be fakin the funk.. acting like a stupid classy ho.. mugging chicks.. hiding the smarts.. doing dumbass naive little slutty shit? who knows, man. it feels great to throw away the facades.. to be who you really are for once; because when i came here i didn't really care whether anyone liked me or not. i already know that i don't have true charisma. i mean, you've either got it or you don't.
there's a plethora of things i can get into besides the "move to a new city where no one knows you" scenario. all of these things.. milestones, memories, trivial events.. is this what life is made of? does your past MAKE you? is a forgone choice a necessary component of a self you rejected? a self that you can never be? or are they laughing or crying somewhere on a distant planet, somewhere in another galaxy, basking in the sun as you watch the stars at night, or maybe crossing a desert as you dive into the sea? one day i want to step into a time warp, or some other space-bending apparatus, a wormhole maybe, & see what's on the other side. maybe i'll find another copy of me, a missing half or fourth or eighth or hundredth of myself (depending on how many choices i've made in this "lifetime"), & i'll smile & wave at them & ask how life is like for this me. or maybe i'll wake up wearing white, staring at the cracked plaster ceiling, & a lady will come in, & she'll hand me some meds because it's "time to take them" again. who knows? that's life.
[i know it's long; i'm not asking anyone to read it]
ever had "what if" fever? you know, when you think of one thing that could've happened, & all of a sudden you're spiraling down into an ever-deepening pool of "what if this..what if that.." & you question your present life, & you wonder how you could've been different, or would you be the same, or would you have the friends you have now, or would you even be alive? then you start getting into parallel/alternate universes, & you wonder what the you at the several crossroads in your life is doing right now? you took this path & you ended up in that universe, you took the other one & you're out doing something totally different in another universe. i have this theory where despite the alternate choices you have made in whatever far out universes there are out there, there are times when inevitably you will be thinking/speaking/doing the same thing as yourself right now, & that is the feeling you call "deja vu." but, you say, why is deja vu a feeling you've "somehow had before?" it's because these universes don't necessarily function with the same time system as your current self's universe; that is, space-time anomalies exist & so you can have the feeling of "memory" though that memory is happening at the exact same time, somewhere out there, with the other you in the other universe. of course it wouldn't be happening at "the exact same time" if the time systems were different in each respective universe, but you get the drift..everything is relative.
anyway, i was thinking that some days i would like to actually switch physical selves with these other bodies of mine. put in less sci-fi terms, sometimes i want to experience what i would've experienced had i made a different choice at some crucial (or seemingly irrelevant or inconsequential) point in my lifetime! wouldn't that be cool? one usually thinks of the butterfly effect as an example of this; however, that movie demonstrates only a small scratch into the surface of chaos theory. for instance, only ashton kutcher's world that surrounds him is affected, and not even that much. the same characters are present instead of completely different ones, & nothing drastic really happens, such as nuclear war or drought or famine or something. anyway, that wasn't the point of the movie. it was supposed to be subjective, with a focus only on him & his life, as opposed to society's or the world's.
what exactly am i getting at? i'm always in this never-ending search of self. i feel pretty comfortable with who i am now: my beliefs, my values, my character, my projection of inner self, my eradication of most former superficialities, my insistence on staying UNinfluenced, etc. but sometimes i wonder.. if certain events (i'm not implying anything in particular, i swear) had never happened, would i still be this way? i mean, is there such a thing as fate & predetermination? or is it the opposite.. do we choose who we become? are we really independent selves? does environment or will or instinct affect us at all? if that is the case, we would have nothing & no one to blame for whatever regrets or mishaps occur as a result of a lapse of judgment, a loss of control, a "not me" moment. doesn't feel so good to be in control of your life, does it?
i am yet to find out whether i myself choose the paths i walk, or if some higher entity selects them for me, or even if that being randomly rolls mystic dice or throws magic darts or closes his eyes & points out a destiny, as if gambling with my fate. if it were the latter case, wouldn't that SUCK? so much for a loving god, right? it's like, no matter how "in control" of your life you are, no matter how orderly you carry out your day, no matter how you conduct your routine habits, no matter how excessively obsessive compulsive you are, there's still a chance that your world will one day, maybe soon, end up totally upside down, and of course there is nothing you can do to stop it (even if it may seem that way). i mean i had no idea i would get into one of the world's worst car accidents & come out with barely a scratch. i couldn't stop the car from wrecking, the fence from denting, the window from bashing into my head. & yet i can say that i did have control of the situation because i was able to stifle the pain that WAS present as well as keep my emotions & shock factor in check. i mean i guess my stable ass mind helped my body & thought processes a lot, because the next day i was up & at it, driving a completely different car, physically & emotionally unaffected, as well as having no nightmares at all, as other accident-survivors have testified (one woman said to me: "i couldn't sleep for days..i kept replaying it over & over in my head for the next few months..i couldn't stop crying.."). & that is the story of how i got my civic (which isn't the point, but oh well). but this story didn't seem to affect me in any way, so let's move on to another example.
i moved to antioch at the start of my senior year, which is basically the most drastic change (not really) someone could say at this point in life. (there are other things i won't get into..yet. let's just say i'm a bit more jaded than a lot of people because of things i've experienced. i'm not being overdramatic..it's true.) funny how i felt funny, people looked funny, the air smelled funny, & everything seemed to spin around in weird circles of color & sound (figuratively). anyway, i don't want to get into the whole thing, but this place was a whole different environment; i was uprooted from my semi-ghetto-suburban area, into wannabe-ghetto-honkyish-neosuburbia. anyway, lots of change, blah blah blah, but i think this place has changed me for the better. i mean, over here there are no corrupting influences, no racism, no sophistication or any traces of a city vibe (sorry guys, it's true. how do you NOT know the word "hifey" till this year? what's up with the slow ass fashion? what's up with using the word "dating?"). it's kinda like that movie, where tad hamilton goes to that country chick's small town, back to the "roots," & ends up liking it. anyway.. what if i had stayed in vallejo? would it be any different? would i still be the ignorant ASS i used to be? would i still be fakin the funk.. acting like a stupid classy ho.. mugging chicks.. hiding the smarts.. doing dumbass naive little slutty shit? who knows, man. it feels great to throw away the facades.. to be who you really are for once; because when i came here i didn't really care whether anyone liked me or not. i already know that i don't have true charisma. i mean, you've either got it or you don't.
there's a plethora of things i can get into besides the "move to a new city where no one knows you" scenario. all of these things.. milestones, memories, trivial events.. is this what life is made of? does your past MAKE you? is a forgone choice a necessary component of a self you rejected? a self that you can never be? or are they laughing or crying somewhere on a distant planet, somewhere in another galaxy, basking in the sun as you watch the stars at night, or maybe crossing a desert as you dive into the sea? one day i want to step into a time warp, or some other space-bending apparatus, a wormhole maybe, & see what's on the other side. maybe i'll find another copy of me, a missing half or fourth or eighth or hundredth of myself (depending on how many choices i've made in this "lifetime"), & i'll smile & wave at them & ask how life is like for this me. or maybe i'll wake up wearing white, staring at the cracked plaster ceiling, & a lady will come in, & she'll hand me some meds because it's "time to take them" again. who knows? that's life.