The what-if game.

The multiverse is shaped by every single possibility that could ever have occurred; as time goes on it expands astronomically. So what if you had a week to live in your 'perfect' universe, as the you from that world? And at the end of the week, you had the choice to stay? All you'd have to sacrifice in return is your current consciousness.

I play the what-if game with myself a lot. What if we'd never moved from Minnesota, what if I'd been raised on video games instead of educational television, what if I was better at keeping friends, what if I didn't like art. And this particular scenario has played over and over, because how do you define your ideal self?

The problem is that your experiences shape your personality and your mind, and do you want to give that up to be 'perfect'? If the person I want to be was never a fatass, she would not have lost her self-confidence, but she also might not have decided that it's unfair to judge people by their appearances, which I'm sure I learned for selfish reasons. Then again, if she was confident and outgoing and made friends easily, she would not have spent liberal amounts of time socializing on the internet; she wouldn't have met the people I love, she wouldn't have read MSPA - okay, slightly less important but still a factor! She probably dresses well and drinks and goes to parties when invited instead of staying away because, as explained the day after when asked why she wasn't there, she 'can't do parties'. She probably wouldn't have retreated into books; maybe she's never read Neil Gaiman, maybe she hasn't discovered the glorious medium of comics, maybe she likes Twilight. She probably has a boyfriend. She probably knows how to use makeup and understands popular society's emphasis on leg-shaving. She very obviously isn't me.

The question: Is it worth it? Safe in the confines of a hypothetical situation, I can make lofty and moral decisions like How could I give up who I have become? How could I trade my dreams for the future in exchange for a different past? You can't have everything. Choose: social life in high school or internet friendships? Dresses and jackets or sweatshirts every day? Top 40 or Amanda Palmer? Smiling for photos or wanting to untag everything that pops up on Facebook? Partying or sitting restless and alone in your room, wanting to go outside but afraid to leave?

I'm not making my 'ideal self' into a stereotype; I'm saying that if I want some things, I have to give up others. If I want to be self-confident, I give up what led me to my internet community in the first place. If I want to go out clubbing with friends, I give up Saturday nights in Queens with my grandparents and my uncle's family. I mean, goddamn, if I never had allergies I would have gotten a cat a long time ago, and I wouldn't have Molly.

Again. You can't have everything. And I know that if I think about it, I really would not want to trade my life for something that seems better in fantasy. Because then I wouldn't be me. I would be gone. I guess that's what's so terrifying about doppelgangers, but in this case you are the doppelganger. It is you. (See, there is another Homestuck reference I would not be able to make because I would not have met the person who introduced me to MSPA, and even if I'd found it some other way, I might not like it.) Everything I value will lose its significance. Everything I do will be nullified. The people who know me will lose me, and who knows whether they will be better or worse for it? Maybe she doesn't think about these things, like I do; and I'm sure that even if she does, she certainly does not wish to be me.

And still, I wonder. If this scenario were actually possible - if I could trade lives with another me for a week, a month, a year, a day - would I have the same opinion? Would I still value the self in this world?

Would I want to come back?

Olivia