August 12, 2010

Describe the one who got away.: Going, going, gone

http://www.plinky.com/prompts/504/answers/new

This is an encouragement to delve into “shoulda, coulda, and woulda!” thinking. That’s always a disaster. You can’t win from that POV.

“… checked the Eternal Possibilities Machine, which generates all the possibilities for use in creating the alternative worlds. In all those probability lines …” CHURCH 10●19●62 (Vol 1) 978-0-557-08387-9 page 45

It’s not like you can examine the “eternal possibilities machine” that will tell you what the results were from every choice. No matter how small. How trivial. Perhaps you become a millionaire if in the third grade, you’d have picked Wheaties as opposed to Cheerios that morning before you went to school. (Yeah, I know there’s no relation possible between the two. But how do you know for SURE?)

See, there have been so many “decisions” that I made, had made for me, made by default, or even made by failing to make a decision. And, I could drive myself crazy by trying to second guess those “decisions”. Off the top of my head, where I lived, where I went to school, who I dated, where I went to work, and choices made about jumping to another job. Countless decisions, large and small, that like Gulliver, those are the tiny Lilliputian threads, which bind us down.

Who’s to say which thread, which if loosed, would make a huge alternative possibility into a reality?

Even later in life, I made decisions that I know regret. For example, when my MBA classmates decided to go together to law school at night as a group, I was burnt out from schooling. I knew I’d never finish that path with my mind in its state at the time. Too bad! Maybe it was just too much school. Another six years. Argh! I had four years of VA benefits left. But it wasn’t the money, the tax deductability status, or even the commute. It was the time! Funny because after a few years off, I went and did a four year program in CompSci. Crassly, my motivation was to collect my last VA benefits. (Hey, I was being robbed by Uncle Sam so this was just my attempt to mitigate my damages.) Turns out, it was a useful credential. When I was young enough to exploit it.

So, consulting the EPM (i.e., mythical Eternal Possibilities Machine in CHURCH 10●19●62), I can see the “law school” track, leading to failure, alcoholism, divorce, or even death. (That was a traffic accident when rushing home from school tired and after a night cap!) But you never really know, one track might have led to “world peace”. (Hey, if beauty queen contestants can wish for a great result for which they have absolutely zero impact on, so can I.) Maybe I could have a degree and a license. Maybe I could have a future. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

But it is fun to wonder in an idle moment to wonder what might have been.

Where in the world is Virginia Barry?

ROFL! (Only a really kool girl, like her or Frau, would go to a College dance called the “Engineers’ Balls”. ROFL

Maybe the “shoulda, coulda, and woulda!” exercise is valuable to demonstrate all that we have.

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