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Alternative Universe You

Ex

14:09 / 24.03.04

[Leans back against mantelpiece with meerschaum]
Y'know, I always thought I'd be a musical type: henna'd expanses of hair, floaty clothes, ethnic jewellery and small-town amateur dramatics. I look down at my suited and booted cropped-on-top songless city status, and I don't wonder where it all went wrong - I think it all went rather nicely - but I do think: I could do me totally differently. Without much fuss or trauma.
Other people I know seem to have a much deeper connection to their current mode of being. And when you take them away from the moors, they pine.

So: Could you do you totally differently? Or are you doing you the only possible way? Could you make big changes in your life, location, appearance, relationships, job, blahblahlifecakes without disturbing the you-ness of you, or are there some really big sticking points?

(I know this is vague - I just want to bump the hate thread down a bit, it's calling to me to post again...)

14:42 / 24.03.04

I don't think an alternate universe version of me would be that different to be honest. Maybe if I wasn't the oldest of all my siblings I'd work a bit harder to be recognised, but overall I'd say me and alternate me would get along just peachy.

I'd love to fight my exact double though. I'd have the advantage because I know all his moves...

Ex

14:47 / 24.03.04

I'd love to fight my exact double though. I'd have the advantage because I know all his moves...

Are you going to be wearing a mask, so they don't spot that it's you/them?

14:52 / 24.03.04

but I do think: I could do me totally differently. Without much fuss or trauma.

But could you? Do you desire to? Are you going to?

or to put it another way - Isn't the only way to prove that you could do you totally different without fuss or trauma to do just that?

Ex

15:01 / 24.03.04

Good thought. Ummm... Well, although I don't feel very strongly attached to my current me, I also don't feel motivated to change, which may be telling.
The total reinvention of myself visually would cost a lot of money. So would most new hobbies and activities. I may try to pursue other interests over the coming year; I think I end up doing things mainly because other people do them, so if I meet some madrigal enthusiasts I may be dragged back into their murky underworld. And when things wear out and run out and fall out, I shall probably take a good look at whether I could replace them with something different.

I suppose what I wanted to know was whether the idea of alteration and change threw most people into a state of blind panic and threatened their sense of self. I can only think of about four things that are definitely me and which aren't open realy to debate. Most of the things I do and are seem (at the moment) to come from accidental collision, happenstance, chums, and special offer rummage bins. I was wondering if that was unusually flexible.

Goodness Gracious Meme

15:17 / 24.03.04

Not quite the same thing, but I had a similar moment just now, if you'll indulge me.

Walking home past the 5star hotel next to Bengali Mansions, there was a woman waiting for a cab.

Definitely about the same age as me, but groomed/suited/booted, with expensive luggage and a couple of laptops. Me, in my usual jeans/mens' jacket scruff, excited coz I'd spent £10 on good food.

Had a sudden realisation that this could easily have been me, (as in a past life i started audit training with a firm of city accountants). V.odd. Not bad, but odd.

*****************

anyway, back on topic.

Hmmm. Not sure where I expected to be, but it certainly wasn't here. 'Here' being location, joblessness, lack of professional qualifications, slackerness. (none of which are bad, either, which is something you could never have convinced me of 10 years ago.)

I love where I am right now, but I think quite alot of it is temporary, subject to change. Alot of what I'm happiest with has happened by randomness, and can quite imagine things having turned out differently. Just not sure how.

Is that vague enough?

actually, at times I think expected to be alot less settled/grounded, I think I have pictured/expected myself to be a have-rucksack-will-travel type, hardly ever in the country, swathed in Rohan. Which I can imagine doing, and enjoying, but hasn't come to pass.

15:35 / 24.03.04

I thought I was going to be straight, for one thing...

Ooh. Actually, this is like something I was going on about the other day. Okay. You know how consumer goods work through interpellation, or, as Sheep on Drugs put it, I can't afford it, but it's definitely me! So that when you see clothes or think about having a haircut or whatever, you kind of feel like they're appealing to you personally? Like "Yeah! That t-shirt totally expresses my inner being!"

I don't get that, or I feel like I don't get it as much as other people, anyway. It's one of the reasons I was only a Goth for a very short time, because I liked the costumes - they look cool - but I sort of never managed to get into the thing where they expressed my inner Gothness. So in terms of the clothes/lifestyle thing, totally there could be a ton of alternate Devas quite easily: I don't know about changing, but I tend not to feel a strong connection between my innermost subjectivity and my tastes/activities/ choice of consumer goods.

Except my tastes in books and my modes of reading. Those couldn't alter without altering me. Those are me. I am an intertext between everything I've ever read. And also Blake's 7 and some other stuff on telly, and a couple of films.

Goodness Gracious Meme

16:02 / 24.03.04

I thought I was going to be straight, for one thing...

D'oh. Me too. I didn't even concieve of there being anything else.

I don't think I ever thought being Asian/2nd Gen would mean anything to me. I think I thought that I was English and that was the end of it.

But those are two that I coudln't imagine being without, now.

16:38 / 24.03.04

I am an intertext between everything I've ever read.

Oh, rock! That ...rocks.

I am how I spend my time. By which I mean contingently what I spend my time doing (verb) & necessarily how I spend my time (adverb), though these interrelate. E.g., I signed up for a drawing class that very slightly disrupted my routine & I haven't felt like myself for a month & I'm about to reject it. So I'd say that I have the shell, but not the body yet ...like a sort of reverse-crustacean, the beaches are littered with my discarded bodies. But the shell, the goddamned shell is a thing of beauty.

blimey ack phht

16:41 / 24.03.04

I'm at a point in my life where I could go any direction, be any person, make any decision... and it's the most oppressing feeling in the world.

If I didn't have a young child to think about, it might be easier, but I always have her best interest in mind... or is she there, reminding me of my best interest?

I'm not eligible for metamorphosis, I'm formless. I exist as being uncommitted, unconfined to any look/idea.

Or perhaps I have found myself?

Ex

17:29 / 24.03.04

This is all very interesting. I thought it would provide light banter and conclude in a "what superhero costume would you wear" debate. So thanks, all...

Had a sudden realisation that this could easily have been me

Yes, that partly what prompted my thinking; I get that quite often. And sometimes I wonder, if I saw myself in a crowd, would I think "That could be me"? Or just "Dude! Skanky coat."

Except my tastes in books and my modes of reading. Those couldn't alter without altering me. Those are me.

I came down to the books, also. Although I can see wiggle room for different kinds; but I couldn't be me without being a reader, or at least a processor of a shedload of information.

I've thought of another way of explaining it. Some people wear a certain pair of trousers, and they perfectly convey a complex nexus of issues and interests and things about themselves and what they want to communicate and who they are. And other people end up wearing exactly the same pair of trousers just because they spilt takeaway soup on another pair just before they were about to see The Return of the King and H&M were open late.
And sometimes I feel that way about my entire life.
Does that make any more sense?

17:46 / 24.03.04

I've always wondered what it'd be like now, if I'd been an identical twin. I never really worked it out though- probably with a lot stronger sibling rivalry, and would try to be more crazy/stupid/perhaps more intelligent to try to get away from being like my twin.

18:09 / 24.03.04

It does, totally, but...

And other people end up wearing exactly the same pair of trousers just because they spilt takeaway soup on another pair just before they were about to see The Return of the King and H&M were open late.

is another kind of nexus, isn't it? You have to be the kind of person who eats takeaway soup not very carefully, and who goes to see ROTK in a rush, who buys pants on impulse at a department store, etc. I mean, that above scenario would not happen to me. In fact I spilled coffee all down the front of my shirt this weekend & I just let it dry and forgot about it... besides I can't just pop into shops & buy clothes. Not because I can't afford to, I just can't think that fast.

I may be taking this too literally...

blimey ack phht

18:42 / 24.03.04

I was born an identical twin and my twin didn't survive. I've always wondered which "twin" I would be-- the brainy one, the popular one, so on.

This also applies to raising my daughter. I know I can't "make" her into anything, but the things I do and say to her contribute to who she will become. What do I want to expose her to? What influences do I want to have in her life? It's a terrifying power to have.

Tryphena Absent

19:33 / 24.03.04

You know I don't think I could be anyone else. This for instance- I thought I was going to be straight, for one thing...- never happened to me. Even if I was totally straight I don't think my mind could quite bear to identify me in that way or accept the idea of attraction based on something so... flimsey as a body even if in practice I was only ever attracted to one sex. Perhaps one of the reasons I couldn't be someone else is that I always tend to play everything by ear, my opinions sway pretty drastically, the way I dress changes everytime I buy something new, I can't bear to have the same hair from week to week.

On the big things... I'm always going to be a meat eater however much I'd prefer not to be, I'm never going to be a Tory, I'll always be obsessed with human rights issues, I prefer Victorian houses, I'm a chocolate addict, I hate living away from London because I think other cities are tiny and repressive. If I spilt soup on myself I would go and attempt to buy another pair of trousers but would be more likely to emerge with a new shirt. So err, plenty of room for small alteration constantly but that is how I do me.

21:21 / 24.03.04

I think this is a lovely thread and I'm glad it's gone the way of proper 'thought' rather than light banter. Although I was looking forward to boring on about how I could never be 'Superwoman' on account of looking really bad in just tights.

I'm intrigued about the fact that (in the main) people seem only to be up for considering their Alternative Universe Self here if they are female...

Where am I going with that?

I dunno.

Maybe it's a more female trait to consider what you 'could have been'?

I think I am the embodiment of Alternative Universe Selves right about now; for a long time I went down a life path I became unhappy with and suddenly I appear to have done a complete about face and am now, curiously, starting again from the very beginning of where I went wrong. Which is one way to find out who I would have been I guess.

Interestingly, I also appear to think I am living the lifestyle of a rampant party goer, since all I have ever bought clothes-wise is totally unsuitable for anything but the most raucous of parties. Does this count as a possible Alternative Universe Self trying to divert me? Maybe.

All I know is, it's not ideal to try and take your kid to school wearing 6 inch purple stillettoes.

23:24 / 24.03.04

My life could totally have changed in so many ways so easily. It is scary when one little decision on one little day has an effect on the whole course of your life.

I sometimes wonder if I hadn't gone to that bar that night, if I hadn't met this person or that person what the hell would have happened. And you always know that even if that special thing hadn't happened something else would have taken its place.

23:30 / 24.03.04

and there but for the grace of 'sliding doors' go I, and everyone else in this universe.

02:09 / 25.03.04

...the few times in years past where I've tried to really change the way I am, such as 'ditch-the-hat-and-be-respectable-and-get-a-career' or briefly when I was living in Mexico 'go-out-drinking-every-night-partier' I've always eventually snapped back to being myself... It's like there's a self-control mechanism that reminds me of what the roots of my personality are... hmmm.... It scares me to think of what I could have become because of events, but I only ever seem to picture scary alternatives...

gotham island fae

04:02 / 25.03.04

I would need to ask when the Alteration occurred.

Did I seduce or just fuck the best guy friend I had in High School who became the Valedictorian Harvard Grad? No. Had I, what would be now?

Did I never learn of weed in college?* Would I be a politically inspired actor in Chicago? Creating naive but challenging theatre that supports the War on Terror? Would the absence of the plant spirit of Mary Jane ever have turned me that much from me? GodZ, I hope not.

Would I have gotten over my Xristian sexual repression three years earlier? That might have made a difference in who I am.

Hell, I could have a kid. That would be different.

Course none of these are me. And until they send me a message like the future self that was trampled by his Saturn return did, I'll not have much connection to these possibilities.

*Hell, why not ask if I stuck with Education as my major. Course, that actually leads to: I could be dead of a suicide in my car at 20.

06:23 / 25.03.04

In an alternative universe I am one couth motherfucker.

07:49 / 25.03.04

I cannot even countenance the possibility of a universe that strange.

I logged on, read half this thread, logged back on to post, and lo and behold, Buk has said it all already. Just that chance and contingency play such a huge part in who we are, who we've become involved with etc. I had no idea 10. 5, 2 years ago that I'd be in the relationship I'm in now, living where I live, doing this job etc. I read an interesting Buddhist autobiography last year, "A Record of Awakening" by David Smith. At one point he says he's not that concerned about the future and doesn't plan for it that much, beyond obvious things like saving money, because it always turns out completely different to our preconceptions. Sensible attitude, I thought.

Goodness Gracious Meme

09:04 / 25.03.04

"I think I am the embodiment of Alternative Universe Selves right about now; for a long time I went down a life path I became unhappy with and suddenly I appear to have done a complete about face and am now, curiously, starting again "

Hah. I'm the queen of this. Have done it at least 4 times in a reasonably short life... And each time I seem to be trading off some positives and negatives but getting closer to what suits me.

So, actually, I guess I'm saying that there are quite a few things which are 'me', but I run across them by accident.

Taking Deva's 'reader' eg, I think I'm an 'people-er'.

Looking back I can see pretty much anything I've enjoyed has had an element of 'people work/interaction/examinging people/characters' in. I can bear pretty much any environment with people in it. The job that drove me nuts(almost literally) was the culmination of years of deliberately acquiring apt skills, knowledge and experience, but involved being on my own all day.

09:06 / 25.03.04

We're all Jenny Everywhere now.

Lilly Nowhere Late

09:25 / 25.03.04

Isn't it curious how this thread is a lot of discussion about "who one is " as opposed to what one would be if altered?
I think most folks are pretty involved and attatched to whoever they are, right now.

I'm the other queen of total life change. I don't dislike doing it. I find it all quite adventurous and it certainly softens the tedium. Also I find that when I am concentrating too much on me, that is the time when events occur and I switch lives.

I often wonder about other people's alternate selves. I picture people in totally arbitrary worlds/lives/times than the one I know of them to be in. I make the whole story. Then I write it all down and if it is a character I can use, I do use it.
If I cannot picture a future for someone, inevitably up til now, they don't seem to have one.
And even when I put all that away, in my abrasive mind, there is always a residue of my imposed character on the person.

If I were my alternative self, I really would be Lilly Novak- I hope.

Goodness Gracious Meme

09:38 / 25.03.04

Yes. Perhaps it's because also unless one's already had flashes of the alternative yous, its easier to start with where you are/what you've been (doing).

Ooh, I got one. In another time/space I'd hope to be Katherine Cleaver.

Whisky Priestess

10:25 / 25.03.04

I have been thinking about this a lot lately, mainly because I am grindingly, grindingly poor right now and I have a feeling that if I hadn't gone to Canada over New Year, which cost me about £1000 in airfare and lost earnings, things would be almost unrecognisably different in my life, and not just financially.

I kind of regret not having stayed in the UK, if only to see just how other things might have been, and I think about it quite frequently because I really was teetering on the go/don't go decision. It was a knife-edge and I wonder what was on the other side, and i think it could have taken me in a very different direction - I would have been a different person from then on, although given the timescale not that much different - yet.

The other recent thing I bitterly regret, (again, because of the poverty thang) was fucking up a gameshow I should have won (and, technically, did, but messed up an answer). Goodbye £3000 easy money. Although I'd probably just spend it all on gadgets like last time.

But apart from recent "crunch points", I think I have a basic patern that was installed very very early on, and I would be damned surprised if AU me wasn't involved in the creative/expressive arts somehow, even if I was just a loss-adjuster who tap-danced at weekends.

I *could* have been a mediocre scientist (I had the grades for it), or a decent barrister (but I suspect everyone with an analytical mind and a loud voice thinks that) or a mum at 23 with her own place on the Caahncil housing waiting list, but I'm not sure those are AUs I'd wish to visit.

The one I want to go to is where I got into journalism/TV straight out of college and my witty column was then turned into an international smash hit bestseller and No. 1 film, all by the age of 25. But then again, being the Hellspawn of Helen Fielding and Zadie Smith may have had its downside. These days I'm pretty much resigned to plodding along in poverty and obscurity until my genius is recognised. Better get used to it I suppose ...

15:34 / 25.03.04

It's a game I play with myself frequently, that Alternate Universe Me, and one I ask of many friends. It does not surprise me here, or with them, how many picture this Other Them more free in some substantial way. Be it richer and thus with the freedom to Buy or Do things one can't afford, or be it less materially-driven, a creative wanderer, that freedom is the underlying thing.

I waffle back and forth on ideas of Alternate Me's. One is full of fears, and is not that free me; married to someone I've since left for a more me-suitable life, a soulless database job as it's the only thing around here to code if you don't want a DOD contract or luck out like I did in this world. Others are changed by Sliding Doors events, for to react differently to the same life I've had would be to not be the core of me at all. I imagine them all more free in some way. The me that had a job related to her other university major pop up instead of the one that did, and went on with theatre tech and is poor and busy but stronger and competent and more independent. The me who was rejected by the boy in high school she went to university near home because of and went far away from home and learned not to be so tied to this place. The me whose family didn't ruin her on Catholicism before she decided to become a nun -- in a way that, too, is seen as a more free me, as I've so much Stuff and Things I Worry About and I get so tied up in my relationships. Meh. I babble incessantly.

I'm rather happy with this one, though, and I'd like to keep it. Its past may be set, but I have the ability to change much of its future, and I'm finally getting to the point where I might *actively* do so instead of just "going with it".

18:49 / 25.03.04

Illmatic: I had no idea 10. 5, 2 years ago that I'd be in the relationship I'm in now, living where I live, doing this job etc

Is that not just because you're shit at divination?

11:58 / 26.03.04

I'm reliably certain that most* of my parallel selves are currently incarcerated in their respective universes' Federal Supermax penal facilities. Y'know, locked in a windowless room 23 hrs a day, constant surveillance, soft food pushed in by pole through a slot in the door, etc etc....

So I should count my damn blessings, I should.

*Except for any world where the Nazis won WWII. Hopefully I'm some kind of resistance fighter. Or dead. Hopefully.

Goodness Gracious Meme

12:12 / 26.03.04

Does this count as a possible Alternative Universe Self trying to divert me?

This is fascinating, Olulabelle, so your It girl takes over when you go shopping?

23:05 / 26.04.04

nothing is impossible! If you have an idea then only your self-belief is the limitation of it's fruitfulness.

23:41 / 26.04.04

Ahh, Davida2z, self belief is not all it's cut out to be.

The self belief protagonists, they'd have you believe that all you need to do is get in that "I'm great and I rock' head space and all will eventually be cool.

So hon, lemme tell you, they are talking BOLLOCKS.

15:03 / 27.04.04

Yeah achieving your potential is always a dangerous game. While it remains potential you can bullshit and pretend it was a great potential. What happens if you achieve your potential, and then realise it was merely to eat less cheesy snacks. Too horrible to imagine. At least if you never achieve your potential you still have some hope.
On a lighter note I always wondered what my evil alternate self would be like (apart from having a beard, as all evil selves do)