Tuesday, 6/25

I wonder what the odds are that I ended at this exact point in my life?

I've been writing a lot recently about how weird my life is, and I don't want to bore you and do that again. But after I did my TV bit last night, based on the fact that I'm now a temporary Tik Tok star (2.1 million views and climbing), I started to think. And that, as we all know, is a dangerous thing.

Here's why.

Being a dork means that I've watched and read a lot of science and science fiction in my life. Among other things, that means I'm a great believer in the Multiverse, that there are infinite universes in which we live, each one based on a single moment of time. As an example, take one of my walks to work every day. If I just head in like I normally do, we stay in the “prime” universe of my life. But if I one day decide to walk around a block differently, that version of me heads off into a different timeline, because who knows what might happen to that particular multiverse version of Jim. Maybe nothing, maybe I get hit by a car, maybe someone runs up to me and gives me a million dollars. Any of those ways would cause a divergence in my personal reality and, therefore, pop out another version of Jim in another timeline.

Dorky stuff, I know. But according to most physicists, that's how the space-time continuum works.

Anyway, to kind of pull this back into our current version of reality, while I was walking home last night I started to wonder just how many life choices, random accidents, quirks of nature led to this version of me being at this point in time. One little thing in the past—me deciding not to take a job or to stay an extra year in school, or meeting Loraine, or moving back here, whatever—and I would not be where I am right now. So many things had to happen in the order in which they happened that the chances of my current state of reality—overworked history nerd and accidental Tik Tok star—has to be infinitely minuscule.

Yet, here we are.

I don't know why this particular thought popped into my head on my way home last night, but it did. One different step along the way—small or big—and things would have turned out radically differently. But I am where I am because everything that's happened to me happened at a certain time and in a certain way, leading to the formation of my current sense of reality.

Which means that somewhere in the Multiverse, there's probably a Jim who's an accountant or garbage collector, or a Jim who actually likes winter, or a Jim who's never heard of Tik Tok. I wonder if they've thought about everything that had to take place to make their reality a reality?

(jim@wmqt.com), thinking about things WAAAAAAY too much.