Something Incredible

First, read this. Something Incredible.


I'll bet many of us have a similar story. And for every one of us who does, it turns into a light bulb moment. How does that line go? "Now we see through a glass darkly..."

Life never turns out like we think it should or want. I've been playing around with this thought of "If I knew then what I know now, how would life be different?" I've been toying with writing this out as a novel...one man gets the chance to relive his life from age 18. A chance to do the "right" things. A chance to make those leaps of faith, take those chances, and do that which he didn't do or should have done or shouldn't have done.

Then I thought, "What if what he chose to do in this alternate reality changes the things he loves in this reality? How does he protect the good things he wants and has and change that which he feels needs changing?"

And it came to me...he can't. Only God knows how this all turns out and He ain't telling me my story. My part in it has to be discovered as I move from day to day, hour to hour, minute to minute. There is a theory that for every decision there are multiple other decisions and with each of those other decisions, big or small, another universe is created where you chose "B" instead of "A". In each of those universes, the "B" decision took you down an entirely different path than the "A" decision. Science fiction writers have played with this in numerous formats. Literature, "The Man Who Folded Himself" (and just about any Star Trek novel!), TV, the aforementioned Star Trek, "All Good Things". Movies, comic books, articles, etc.

We are given one life to live. How we live it is up to us. We will miss opportunities. We will have regrets. We will make good choices that at first seem wrong. We will make wrong choices that at first seem right. We will see others never make a bad decision and others who can't seem to make a correct one to save their lives.

At age 34 I was pretty comfortable with who I was. I thought I had most of "it" figured out. It only took 5 years for me to find out I still didn't know squat and that straining against the goads is a waste of time, effort and energy.

So Taximan may be driving a cab into infinity but I'm sure there are experiences out there in the next year or so that he cannot comprehend now and might miss (or not) if he chooses another path which may or may not contain experiences and surprises he (and we) cannot comprehend.

Keep on truckin' Taximan...

Eric