The Weekly Ws - 8 - The Who of You Could Have Become

[The Weekly 'W's is my weekly series exploring the What, Why, When, Where, Who and the occasional hoW ?? of things that interest me. It is an attempt to get back into the writing habit, from which I had taken a break for a few years.]

Recently, I came across this incredible quote which is apparently from the book Who Not How: The Formula to Achieve Bigger Goals Through Accelerating Teamwork by Dan Sullivan:

Someone once told me the definition of Hell: The last day you have on earth, the person you became will meet the person you could have become.

The easy interpretation many would consider upon reading this is that in the ultimate analysis of life, most of us don’t live up to our potential for a variety of reasons. Some of them because of our own choices, and some of them because of circumstances beyond our control.

The "You Could have Become" is a tricky concept. Obviously it is an idealized version of you that is true to your essence itself, but frankly there are too many parameters to consider, too many decisions to not regret, too much potential to realize. In fact, my interpretation of the quote is that the very process of such imagination and the subsequent ruminations (rue-minations?) of what could have been or who you could have become, is the actual hell, rather than meeting such a person itself.

I was reminded of a short story that I read a few years ago and had written about elsewhere. The short story/novella is called ‘And Then There Were N-One’ [to be read as N minus One] and was written by Sarah Pinsker. It was featured in her fantastic debut collection titled Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea. It was first published in Uncanny magazine in 2017. (Link to full text of story.)

The title itself is remarkable, an interesting use of the N minus one concept widely used in mathematics and that which fits the plot here succinctly, plus a refreshing hat-tip to the genre master Agatha Christie’s novel title. This is a wildly imaginative whodunnit murder mystery, set within the multiverse construct. The multiverse has been discovered, and interdimensional travel has been invented. Sarah Pinsker, a quantologist in one of the dimensions, who has discovered said multiverse and the ability to travel to other dimensions, reaches out and invites all the other Sarah Pinskers in all the other dimensions, and organizes a conference among themselves, a “SarahCon” if you will, in a remote island-sovereign nation. But alas, during the event, one of the Sarahs is found dead!!

The narrating Sarah, an insurance investigator, is the only person closest to some kind of investigative figure among the crowd, and is called by the hotel manager Sarah to investigate, before the organizers can figure out what to do. What follows is an excellently narrated story with deeper undertones to choices and how it impacts us and how we deal with them.

I was also remembering the multiple spidermen meme used as the header image of this article while reading the initial sections of the story, brilliantly bringing out the complexity of the situation.

At the registration desk, while going through the list of participants to identify herself, Sarah is looking at the occupation details:

The occupation list read like a collection of every “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I’d ever answered. Geneticist, writer, therapeutic riding instructor, teacher, history professor, astronomer, journalist, dog trainer, barn manager. I was the only insurance investigator.

This is exactly the struggle with the "who you could have become question.!! ???? Various choices made by the characters in their individual realities all lead to the various ‘divergence points” of their lives, and everybody seems to question themselves on which ones were the defining divergence points in their lives vs the others. The narrating Sarah thinks she herself is incapable of murder, but does that mean all the other Sarahs will be, too?

This took a very multi(verse)-layered turn when applied to the situation of the story, where you are expected to connect not with others but with other versions of yourself. I liked the ending of the story very much. Not just the twist-ending part, but the philosophical depth in the ramifications and consequences of choices we all make.

I recently read another quote by Brene Brown:

Our connection with others can only be as deep as our connection with ourselves. If I don’t know and understand who I am and what I need, want, and believe, I can’t share myself with you.

I would conclude by saying that it is good to develop a sense of your own capabilities and the possibilities, in order to stay connected to your potential.

However, you should rather enjoy who you are in the moment, and who you are becoming by the experiences you are going through in the moment, all while keeping sight of someone you wish to become in the future, but not get lost in the myriad alternate/imaginary realities.

Now, I would strongly recommend you to become the person who commented on this article with your feedback. It is a possibility that would greatly encourage me! ??