Wrote this one a long time ago actually, just never got around to posting it. Well, here it is:
Random Tangent
Recently, I've been thinking about how things have ended up how they are today in my life and how different things would have been if a single event had taken a different path. A lot of times through life there are those events where fate or luck or god plays a hand and changes things in one way or another, for better or worse. Those situations where by just pure chance things turn out one way. It makes me wonder, what would have changed if they had turned out the other way? If that simple bit of chance had worked the other way, how would things be different or how much would they be the same?
There's of course the obvious one at the start of life, the switch of a single chromosome. How much would life be different if that last chromosome had been an X instead of a Y? Things would be entirely different...
But the one that I've been thinking about more is a lot more recent than that. In my town here, there are two middle schools, called Brownell and South Valley. Back a few years ago, when it was my time to go to middle school, I was supposed to go to Brownell like my sister had two years before. However, due to some mix-up or administrative decision or something, I was sent to South Valley instead. At first, I was really annoyed that I had to go to that other school, but there were some perks to it. I knew a few of the people there from my old days of elementary school, but overall I really wasn't too thrilled with the place.
But then around came eighth grade. And in that year, something just seemed to click. It was kind of as if I had woken up for the first time in my life, after being asleep for seven grades. Eighth grade was the dawn of time for me, the year where things turned from the shady beginnings of the deep past that I remember little of now to the current era and the events I'm actually interested in. Before eighth grade, I never really payed any attention to life at all, but in that year, the switch was flipped on and I saw the world about me.
Some of the major characters of my life now made their original appearances in that year. The one most notable for the sake of this tangent is Nikhil, one of my best friends now, if not my best friend. I met him that year and we got this idea to write a book. So we set to work on it and got pretty far with it, though never completely finished it. We got a workable narrative going but still had to edit it a lot, but this is all another story. As eighth grade came to a close and fresman year was about to begin, I was feeling pretty darn good about life and looking forward to freshman year and the continuation of our writings in the next year.
High school's years have led me to where I am now, in Junior year, looking back on how things have turned out. Nikhil and I still haven't finished work on that first book, but have started several others. We'll get it some day... heh! Well, anyway, through Freshman and Sophomore years and the start of this year, I've met with a bunch of people and remet some of the old crew that went to Brownell when I went to South Valley. I've now met all sorts of people that I would have have been in classes with if I had gone to Brownell, people like Cameron, Luis, Dana, Michael, Trent, and the rest of the crew. And I would have met some of last year's freshmen sooner or stuck with older crews, like Emi, Roman and the rest of them all. And even this years newcomers, I might have known them from school or through siblings that went there.
But also it would mean that I would not have met the South Valley crew. I wouldn't have met Nikhil until recently and the book never would have been started. I probably wouldn't have become interested as much in writing, perhaps taking a different path. And I wouldn't have met the rest of those I met at South Valley, all the numerous names and faces that make up daily life. The order of events would be completely jumbled up and things would very different.
So now I sit here and wonder, how exactly would things have turned out if that single event had followed an alternate path? Would things have wound down to the same present day, just along a different course to get here? Or would I be a completely different person than who I am today? If so, would it be for better or for worse? Would I have gone into writing anyway? Would I have joined a different crew than the ones I hang out with now? And would I be sitting now in that present, wondering what would change if I had taken this path instead of that?
I've thought about this for a while now and come to the conclusion that it's not for me to say. Fate or luck or God must have had some mighty celestial importance for life to be as it is, and if not then we're stuck with it anyway, like it or not, so make the best of it. It's merely something to ponder as we wind away the hours of the days and reach towards the future and the millions of choices that will judge the eventual destination of each of our lives. There is no way to know how one event can shape the future. We can only make each choice for the best, and then let time go as it will. It will all turn out right in the end.
Heh, another enormously long journal entry. oh well... That's it for now, see you all later!
-Josh
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Ramblings of a comparatively sane guy
Just whatever pops into my head each day. It'll include stuff about me, life, and everything else.
wadsworth_the_hare
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"To Be is to Do" -Plato
"To Do is to Be" -Socrates
"Do Be Do Be Dooo--" -Sinatra
"To Do is to Be" -Socrates
"Do Be Do Be Dooo--" -Sinatra
Madness takes its toll.... Please use exact change.
God-moding: the Eigth Deadly Sin...
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