Live on Stage

You know there are days where I think we’re all just going about it completely the wrong way. Yes, the Internet is bringing us all closer in ways your late grandfather would have issues to comprehend, and that would be cause for celebration if the flipside of it wasn’t the incessant, inescapable maelstrom of information that tags along with it.

Being connected nowadays also means a daily chore of weeding through updates, coupons, unsolicited junk like cute cats I don’t care for, job openings I cruelly can’t or wistfully won’t fulfill – and let us not forget that weird uncle of electronic correspondence: the Act Now Viagra offer. We’re all getting wired to swallow it whole, regurgitate it with our own inimitable twist, or just copy-pasting “What he said” when inspiration is lacking fundamentally.

So let’s talk about something else for a bit. The theory of the multiverse is apparently gaining scientific ground spectacularly fast these days, and I love it. You see, for lack of flying cars and to break the lull of waiting for Skynet, there’s a bunch of awesome nerds out there figuring out that the only way time travel is possible is through parallel realities. And since it is unfathomable that time travel is impossible – simply because it would be unbearably disappointing if it were so – the universe apparently is like a big acoustic guitar with innumerable strings on it, playing intricately detailed chords on a micro level but expanding in a gracefully simple ripple when looked at from above.

The beauty of this theory is that there’s an infinite number of slight variations on the exact same situation – and the next one, and so on. It means anything you can think of exists on some level, meaning that as we speak there is a world where Will Smith still releases rap singles summarising the plots of his latest blockbusters, but also one with a bar serving grilled-cheese martinis to people paying good money for such an experience.

It’s a comforting thought, if you want it to be, and a motivating, exciting one if that’s how you drink your tea.

For those idly whiling away the days of their lives, there’s the liberating thought of some other version of you excelling wherever you fail, taking a chance where you sit and ponder – and with an infinite number of Yous doing things with just a small, inimitable twist of their own, the chances of you being the ultimate version are so slim to none that not even your mother could legitimately require you to bother.

Yet if you’re more inclined to tackle a good challenge, much to motivate can be found in this theory, too. You are one of many highly similar contestants in the Greatest Reality Show Ever – the one that’s known as your life, also known as the only time you can be sure you’ve been given to do meaningful things for those you’re sharing it with.

After the ride is over, nothing’s going to matter quite like it does today. If you look at it that way, you might as well make the most of it, try and be the best You that you can possibly be – and take home the grand prize of a satisfied life and, eventually, dying gracefully.

We live in a time of many options. Too many options, sometimes. Our multiverse must be bursting at the seams nowadays. When we’re always connected, the grand total of things we could be interacting with seems to know no boundaries, and can all too often hit like a sledgehammer, preventing us from doing anything meaningful at all, apart from disseminating more or less literate forms of public masturbation like the prose you’ve just digested.

Still with me? Another you may just have had an epiphany instead.

Go on, disconnect. Take a look outside.