The You That Might Have Been

[Coal]

That's the way it always was. It changed in the 50's to say the early 80's precisely because of the Attlee government's reforms which gave everyone a route to the top table via the 11 plus and the grammar schools. It wasn't perfect but it was better than nothing.

Exactly. Social mobility is worse now that it was in the 1970's.

The terrible legacy of the last decade is the raft of debt laden students with almost worthless degrees. By the time most of them realise they're screwed they'll have neither the money or the time to re-qualify. While those with money and contacts are still where they mostly are now.

There is also a minority with poor quality degrees who are now sure they know everything, these are (I theorise) those who believe that one protects free speech by not allowing people to have free speech and that democracy is "what they think" whether anyone else wants it or not.

 

[Ulalume]

Some pop science parallel universe fun in this episode of Through The Wormhole.

I'd rather listen to Morgan Freeman than some frat boy any day.

 

[David Plankton]

Where's the bit he says you have to crawl through a river of shit five hundred yards long just to reach a parallel universe?

 

[gojiramonkey]

This is a weird question, but does anyone one here feel they may have had a glimpse (literally or figuratively) of the person they might have been, had they taken a different path in life?

Or, for those of you who believe in multiple universes, perhaps a version of you that might exist in a parallel world?

I ask because, very occasionally over the years, I've had a strong mental image of a woman who's lived a life quite different than my own. I can trace this back to a time when there was a "fork in the road' situation, when my life diverged dramatically from what I'd planned or expected.

Sometimes this woman appears in my dreams, too. It's sort of amusing, but I dream that she sends me copies of whatever project she's been working on (by fax, of all things. )

This might just be a psychological quirk, but I did make me wonder if anyone else has a similar experience. While I've never known anyone else to describe this, the idea turns up so often in sci-fi and fantasy literature, perhaps it's not so uncommon after all?

Again for the umpteenth time tonight I apologise for the very late response as a recent comer to the thread and I am loving reading through the old posts...
At school, college and uni my ambition was to be a rock journalist and I half heartedly wrote for fanzines and the uni magazine once or twice and even mamaged to get a work placement one summer at an established metal magazine.... Unfortunately in the short months between being accepted and starting, the magazine moved premises from North London to somewhere near the PO Tower and they forgot I was coming.... So I didn't really have much to do... On a side note I remember a Scottish writer there having flown back from LA telling this green 22 year old
I MEAN, YEA, YOU GET TO FLY TO THE STATES AND INTERVIEW ALL THESE BANDS AND THERE'S THE DRUGS AND THE WOMEN BUT YOU HAVE TO LOOK AT IT ONE DAY AND SAY, WHEN AM I GOING TO GET A REAL JOB??!!
Yea. Thanks for that.....
Anyway....it kind of fizzled out and I do remember applying for a famous publication that you may call K! for short but my portfolio, if you can even call it that, was rejected. Nicely. But definitely rejected!! Not a year later, I noticed one new scribe was a female with my surname. Not just that but I had been told various times by my folks that they thought I was going to be a girl and they were going to name me Kate.... And I am now staring stupified at a certain Kate H-who had my other life name, my ambition but had actually succeeded where this version failed!!!

 

[charliebrown]

As I child my family had limited resources so I never had the luxury to dream the “ what if “.

I was just lucky that people along the way gave me a chance.

On the flip side I did OK, got married, had children, and grandchildren.

I still buy a lottery ticket every week in the hopes of winning.

 

[gojiramonkey]

Just one small example (everything else is too painful to contemplate):

At the end of year exams in my Grammar School Fourth Form, I came top in two subjects, Art and Physics.

But then my family moved, and I found myself at a new school, where they didn't have art classes, or put pupils in for Art GCEs. So I went on to study maths and physics at Uni. Much as I liked it, my maths wasn't good enough to make a career in topics I liked, so I drifted into other fields of endeavour.

I often wonder what my life would have been like if I'd been able to continue with art instead. Perhaps I would have ended up at Falmouth Art School, as was, before it got gobbled up by the ever-growing monster of Falmouth University!

Awwww, Falmouth..... Land of my Fathers, my old stomping ground..... I used to live near the college as it was then.... Ahhhhh.... Emma and Helen..... Both studied there..... Damn I miss them!! And the Falmouth Hotel kitchens where I worked an honest wage.....

 

[gojiramonkey]

I can't read that without thinking of this:

I've learnt a fair bit on this Earth, but when it comes to happiness, another song sums up the simple lesson.

You've gotta know when to hold 'em,
Know when to fold 'em,
Know when to walk away,
Know when to run.

You never you count your money
When you're sittin' at the table.
There'll be time enough for countin'
When the dealin's done.

Good old Fish...... Good old Marillion..
Still love em... Both guises

 

[Krepostnoi]

As I child my family had limited resources so I never had the luxury to dream the “ what if “.

I was just lucky that people along the way gave me a chance.

On the flip side I did OK, got married, had children, and grandchildren.

I still buy a lottery ticket every week in the hopes of winning.

It's funny - I've had three career strands in which I could have been fairly successful in terms of status and financial reward, but my particular family situation dictated otherwise (and there have certainly been elements of imposter syndrome that have also impinged).

And yet, I have two lovely children, who I get plenty of chance to be with, and I have been blessed in terms of my life partner. I've had five years living in Southeast Asia. I'm now doing socially useful work, with people I enjoy spending time with, and which allows me a decent work-life balance. I'm not a prominent academic, or gaining accolades for my literary translation, nor am I interpreting at UN summits, but any one of those careers, although at various stages realistic for me, would have come at the expense of the life I currently enjoy. So, yeah, on balance, I stepped through the correct sliding door.

 

[escargot]

One of my deepest-held beliefs is that every now an' then, as we say round'ere, my life takes a different tangent and I have to deal with it.

It's about to do that now in fact.

 

[catseye]

I always tell people to follow their dreams - because nothing is permanent. In the olden days, you'd leave school and the job you got when you left would be a 'job for life' until you retired. So people got qualifications and experience and tended to stay in their jobs and not move about too much. Nowadays, with social mobility being much greater, you can switch careers as often as you want - finances permitting.

I started out desperately wanting to work with animals. I worked in dairy farming for a while, then became a typist and worked up to personal assistant, then was a school science technician, now I write books and work in the Co Op. I am qualified in all of these fields and have a CV that causes people to raise their eyebrows and say 'REALLY?'

I like to think that I am the me I might have been, because, short of becoming an international dressage rider, there's not I wanted to do that I haven't.

 

[Nosmo King]

I adhere to to belief that you play the cards you are dealt, no matter how shit they are, you can always bluff

 

[escargot]

I adhere to to belief that you play the cards you are dealt, no matter how shit they are, you can always bluff

Are we back to The Gambler?

 

[Nosmo King]

Are we back to The Gambler?

Also, there is no point in worrying about things you have no control over, concentrate on the thing you do.

 

[escargot]

~~~Wavy lines time~~~

Read loads of those Pan horror story books as a teenager and have since picked some up second hand, partly in the hope of finding certain of the stories again.
While some were downright grisly there were numerous beautifully-written and downright chilling yarns that've stayed with me.

Some were even downright inspiring.

(Spoilered in case anyone comes across it!
I can't recommend it as I've long forgotten the title.)

One concerns a ghostly nurse who, the hospital superstition goes, appears in a maternity unit when a newborn baby is about to die.*

One day the staff notice her and after doing a double-take - she's real!- they feel concerned about the women currently in labour.

Part of the story takes the form of a dialogue between the unborn baby and the ghostly nurse. She shows him how his life will pan out - an unfulfilling career, bankruptcy, an unhappy marriage, whatever, etc - and says something like 'You don't have to do this. Come with me instead and have peace.'

This alternates with progress in the delivery room, where the birth is proving unexpectedly difficult.
One of the staff cries and says 'It won't get its head down!' which suggests a serious emergency.

But as the unborn baby is wavering between life and death, he catches a glimpse of the daughter he will have if he lives.
He decides the troubles of life are indeed worthwhile and resolves 'I'll do it for Julia!'

The ghostly nurse disappears and we're abruptly back in the delivery room where a strapping baby boy has been born.

The relieved staff remark that She didn't get what she came for this time. One has the feeling that having for once lost the argument She won't be back.

Over the years, after I had children, I've thought that no matter how bad things were it was worth it for them. For Julia.

*On t'wireless now, in R4's Woman's Hour, there was a discussion about the factors that contribute to differences in neonatal mortality rates between various ethnicities in Britain, ooer..

Edit - you can find the books as PDFs online!

https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/luminist/EB/U - V/van Thal_ed - Pan Book of Horror Stories 08.pdf

 

[Floyd]

It's funny - I've had three career strands in which I could have been fairly successful in terms of status and financial reward, but my particular family situation dictated otherwise (and there have certainly been elements of imposter syndrome that have also impinged).

And yet, I have two lovely children, who I get plenty of chance to be with, and I have been blessed in terms of my life partner. I've had five years living in Southeast Asia. I'm now doing socially useful work, with people I enjoy spending time with, and which allows me a decent work-life balance. I'm not a prominent academic, or gaining accolades for my literary translation, nor am I interpreting at UN summits, but any one of those careers, although at various stages realistic for me, would have come at the expense of the life I currently enjoy. So, yeah, on balance, I stepped through the correct sliding door.

A good friend of mine, 70 this year, went to grammar school and then started work in computers (this is when they were the size of a town). It was a good, respected job but all he wanted to do was drive articulated lorries and that's what he's done ever since 1974- still doing it. A very clever, and knowledgeable chap.

 

[Floyd]

I always think of this analogy;
You come to a 'T' junction and to get home you can go both ways- it makes no difference to you in time or distance. You choose to go right and end up getting stuck in a traffic jam or getting a speeding fine. You then beat yourself up and say ''If only I'd gone left! Why didn't I go left?'' But of course we don't know what might have happened if you had gone left. You may have had a serious accident, killed someone, been killed yourself. It's already written as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Cochise]

A good friend of mine, 70 this year, went to grammar school and then started work in computers (this is when they were the size of a town). It was a good, respected job but all he wanted to do was drive articulated lorries and that's what he's done ever since 1974- still doing it. A very clever, and knowledgeable chap.

That's more or less what happened to me, except a) I wanted to ride motorbikes and b) I kept my hand in with the computers, which, by a combination of fate and luck, led to a successful 20 years or so at the top of a couple of software companies.

But if I hadn't kicked over the traces in 1979, I'd now be a retired civil servant and the wife would be a successful owner of a hairdressing shop.. And my life would have been much, much less interesting.

Those T junctions to which you refer, Floyd1 - yes, my life has been full of them - I guess most people's are. But some of them are so trivial at the time that you don't realise you just passed a point where you can't turn back. With hindsight - sometimes some years later - you do.

I'm not referring to deliberate life changes like me deciding to change job and leave home in 1979 - I'm thinking of the unplanned things that happen that you could have handled differently if only you had been able to foresee the consequences.

edit: Sorry, should have made the second half of that a separate post.

 

[escargot]

aaaaand we have the poem -

Robert Frost: The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

There's also his

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

That one's more about death though, ooer.

 

[blessmycottonsocks]

I was going to post about had I not chatted up the second prettiest French girl who came into the pub that night, then my life would have been very different. As indeed would that of my children and grandchildren (if I were to have had any).
Then I started thinking that if my mum hadn't been invited to a dance at the RAF base that night in the late 50s, she wouldn't have met my dad (who himself was only here because his dad decided to bring the family back to England from India). Then, of course, if my mum's dad hadn't survived being gassed in WW1, then I certainly wouldn't be here. Similarly, my wife's biological dad, who died in a motorbike accident not long after she was born, could remember, as a young lad, Nazi troops marching through his village in rural France and feared being shot, had he not known a few words of German to say to them.
How far back do we go?
With each generation back in time the number of our ancestors doubles.
Any different decision taken by any of them could have resulted in a very different you/me.
The odds of each of us being exactly who we are here today are absolutely astronomically infinitesimal!
Let's face it; we're all a unique result of almost infinite throws of life's dice!

 

[escargot]

I always think of this analogy;
You come to a 'T' junction and to get home you can go both ways- it makes no difference to you in time or distance. You choose to go right and end up getting stuck in a traffic jam or getting a speeding fine. You then beat yourself up and say ''If only I'd gone left! Why didn't I go left?'' But of course we don't know what might have happened if you had gone left. You may have had a serious accident, killed someone, been killed yourself. It's already written as far as I'm concerned.

I've narrowly avoided a couple of nasty road incidents in the last year just by being held up for a few minutes. One was a two-car collision at a crossroads and the other was similar but on a busy rural lane.

Techy and I should have been around where the second crash occurred but we'd been drinking squash and eating snacks on a bench a couple of miles away, in a spot where we'd never stopped before. Dunno why we did, it's not picturesque.

 

[Mungoman]

I've mentioned this before somewhere. I have these occurrences constantly where I am in the company of people who are dear to me, and yet, I wouldn't have a clue who they are - they resemble no one that I know...or have known

I am neither awake nor asleep, and I'm having conversations with these people that I know, and have known for ages...and I know I have known them..

I am at ease with them (which is odd because i have always experienced anxiety - even when I'm alone, and at home), And I follow the conversation with ease, as well as remembering the line of conversation from the start.

The surroundings also are familiar - not in a vague way - the smells are familiar.

It is the same people, the same places, and the conversations are ones you would have in the kitchen with friends about the working week.

Everything is so familiar.

Then I abruptly snap out of it, and realise that I'm now in the present reality and know that 'I've been over there'.


This all started after some surgery on my heart, 7 years ago. At first I thought that it was one of those episodes between waking and sleeping that we get, but then realised that it wasn't - it was constant, and too consistent.

It does happen when I'm weary, not all the time, and I'm aware of what's going on, here, but the 'here' is more of a dream state than 'over there'.

There have been forks in the road in my life, where and when I made a decision to move states, or to completely change a lifestyle that I do puzzle about, and I do wonder where I might've wound up if I hadn't taken the action that I did...It's only natural, isn't it.

This though, my 'over there', has had me intrigued right from the start - and it still does - about alternative realities, and, what might've been...but then it could be just another one of those odd experiences we have in life that carries no explanation.

Couldn't it.

 

[Rappinghood]

There are well off successful versions and terribly frightening versions of most of us, I'm sure.
I know a few corners I could have turned and often wonder if there was some kind of inevitable path I had to take to get me where I am to bring my kids up as it transpires I'm the only chance they've got.

Silly, I know but you do wonder.

 

[blessmycottonsocks]

There are well off successful versions and terribly frightening versions of most of us, I'm sure.

 

[EnolaGaia]

I've narrowly avoided a couple of nasty road incidents in the last year just by being held up for a few minutes ...

This illustrates an aspect of the "what if" reflections that hasn't been mentioned much in this thread - the fact that many of the possible alternative "selves" could well be long dead or disabled. I can think of all too many incidents and situations that could have crippled me for life or snuffed me out entirely. Some of these were 'acts of God' I had to passively endure, whereas some were at least partially my fault.

 

[escargot]

I always think of this analogy;
You come to a 'T' junction and to get home you can go both ways- it makes no difference to you in time or distance. You choose to go right and end up getting stuck in a traffic jam or getting a speeding fine. You then beat yourself up and say ''If only I'd gone left! Why didn't I go left?'' But of course we don't know what might have happened if you had gone left. You may have had a serious accident, killed someone, been killed yourself. It's already written as far as I'm concerned.

Indeed. Like the bus driver who swerved to avoid a child and fell out of bed.

 

[Junopsis]

Well her reality stinks if it topped out at faxing as the ultimate in communications technology.

/posting via internet on smartphone....

I really like the idea of communication-across-timeline-forks as only being functional (or visualizable) in terms of technology available at the time of the fork.

 

[Victory]

When I was 14/15 it was as if I took a different path from the one I had been on.

I got involved in a more "Street" Life; bit of petty crime, hanging with some dubious characters.

Of these, one made the front of the papers for stealing from a famous person's car, another became a heroin addict, another was listed as one of Southern England's 10 Most Wanted men (literally listed on a BBC webpage) whilst on the run (I actually bumped into him during this time, in a local kebab shop and we had a nice chat), another became a pimp and drug dealer (though is now reformed after his third prison stint).

I snapped out of all this by the age of 19 after realising the path I was on was bringing me into contact with very violent people.

But had I not veered off the path, I think that my life would have been different.
I'd have had a more traditional career path and been married by my late 20's, had 2.2 kids and annual holidays in Spain whilst living in a suburban semi-detached.

In many ways I have had a more interesting life...unconventional in terms of my jobs and the company I keep.

But I think I'd have been happier had I not veered off at 14/15.....but would I have been "myself?".

I also made two radical life changing career decisions in my 40's, stopping two projects that I had heavily committed to, which I might otherwise have carried on pursuing.

I regret giving up both as am currently going nowhere fast.

But at the time, I genuinely thought I was "throwing good money after bad" with both projects, so stopped them.

 

[Iris]

When I was about 6 I remember thinking that I thought I could be a much better teacher than the one I had and I did eventually become one.
When I was 18 I was supposed to be getting engaged to a chap I met at Teacher's college when I had a strange dream where I was told what life would be like with him or another friend I had.
Then I was shown the one who was to become my husband. All I could remember was that he had a heart shaped birthmark on his arm.
It wasn't till later on when I had met him, not realising, that we were at the beach and he took off his shirt and I saw the mark and it came back to me.

 

[Sabresonic]

Yes I messed up my life a bit and didn't stick to stuff and from doing various jack of all trades in the Martial Arts I become unconfident.
I wish I stuck to Shotokan Karate, Boxing or took Rugby Union or/and Rugby League as I was born with speed, Natural Punching power and my Boxing fitness coach who is a ex Commonwealth Champion told me he has fought top amateurs from UK, use, Cuba and the Ex Eastern Bloc and said my defensive Boxing skills are way up with the best as I can fight both Orthodox and South paw due to my Karate training BUT sadly I just didn't have it in me for scrap.
Also think I wish tried for Drama School in the 90s as I might of cracked the TV industry BUT I did have 5 great years from 2010-2016 doing Tv work, Screen Combat and Adverts and I was only done a Supporting Artists ( Extra) for most but had many a day.

 

[Cloudbusting]

There are well off successful versions and terribly frightening versions of most of us, I'm sure.

There's an short story that reminds me of this. It's from a book called 'Sum' by the neuroscientist David Eagleman, which speculates on the nature of a creator and the afterlife via a small collection of short stories.

In one of the tales, a man finds himself in an afterlife with all the possible versions of himself that could have existed, had he made different choices. He finds all the less successful versions of himself a bit repulsive, asking why didn't they try more, and why they made the decisions they did. However he also dislikes all the more successful versions of himself, as they remind him of his own inadequacies and mistakes.