I think about this all the time and I guess I am just blessed because every time I think about having lived another life for more than a few minutes, I literally panic that I would screw something up and not meet my wife.
Reading your piece prompted me to reflect on why I overanalyze the decisions I've made. I often feel frustrated by this rumination, but as you beautiful said, the negative space is a part of our portrait. We can find beauty and meaning in the coulda / woulda / shouldas of life.
Absolutely love this idea of negative space and the infinite possibility of life. You captured it wonderfully, Silvio. Something that really gripped me was the sentiment about how, to know someone intimately for who they are, you must also know everything they are not. Or, everything they did not choose. Beautiful beautiful!
What a great reframing of the "negative space", in such a useful way. Reading this first made me think of the movie Riders of Justice, which is a nihilistic, dark take on coincidences and different path lives take depending on choices we make, and your piece is the opposite: such a deep and profound way to "helps us accept who we are".
I love how your outlook is always realist with a good dash of positive, it's always helpful and comforting to go along with you in this intelligent musings, Silvio, thank you for writing!
PS. On another note, Run Lola Run also came to mind haha
I'm always inspired by your writing. This is beautiful: “Our lives are a collection of pivotal moments, and it's difficult not to become captivated by them, not to ruminate on what we would have been. These moments illuminate our lives from different angles and create narratives and stories that evoke a sense of vulnerability and highlight the complexities of our circumstances.”
You got me thinking about the time I stepped out of my shy / introverted shell in college and decided to go on a month-long trip to Italy with students I didn't know. It was my first trip to Europe, and it completely changed my life and relationship to architecture. I visited churches and cemeteries all over northern Italy (including the suburbs of Milan!) and Florence.
Coming up with an ‘answer’ for this piece is extremely difficult. Or rather, rendering it with the same clarity with which you managed to convey everything, is very ardouos. I think I am one of those people who stupidly imagines/dreams a thousand alternative lives per minute. At the same time I am aware of the choices made and the contingencies that have brought me where I am. Even when (most of the time) I'm not satisfied with the "consequences", I know that in that moment I felt like so: it was ‘right’ making a certain choice over another.
So right or wrong, I think it depends a bit on the approach one has to it and on the awareness of who one is and one's nature; on what we want: here I don't feel like giving too courtly opinions because I haven't figured it out for myself yet. And continuing to give free rein to the imagination of lives not lived, lost but also future perhaps still possible or impossible, makes me believe that something good has happened and that then anything could still happen. And maybe it's also this or above all this that drives us to move forward in general, when everything seems to us not going the right way. Contest with Rothman when he says “Often, these stories serve a didactic purpose; they provoke thoughts that bind us to our lives”. I don't know if I have understood the essence of the piece, but reading you, this is the reflection that I made within myself.
Your story reminded me of an experience that has nothing to do with sliding doors, but rather with the impossibility of thinking about alternative unfolding. The impossibility of the multiverse, in short, or at least its infinite vastness and thus the essential futility of thinking about it.
The story is this: I was not yet 18 years old, and with friends we were looking at the stars in the sky. As we talked about the stars, the conversation expanded, just like the universe: "Our galaxy is not the only one, so how many are there? And after that? Is this the only universe, or are there others?" All the way to the ultimate limit, which is: is there a limit? What do all universes contain? The whole or nothingness?
I think this is the limit of the brain, or at least my brain: beyond this limit it cannot process anything else.
It's not even a story, but I well remember having to stop thinking because my head seemed to explode.
As always, yours is a wonderful article full of reflections that I save and work on for days.
The Roberto Benigni movie sounds really fun. I loved the idea that a bird shitting on your head played a part in shaping or at least blessing your destiny. And the Sartre quote especially regarding the role of our negative space seems so true, but I've never been conscious of the weight it carries. I suspect that our conscious awareness of our lives and our choices only scratches the very surface of the truth. I think sometimes we imagine that we're slight victims of outcomes or directions we wound up taking that things could have been otherwise, but I suspect we're more in control of the whole thing than we admit. Perhaps on some level we've freely chosen exactly what we have, and on the surface we might feign regret, or complaint, or longing for what could have been, while we actually have a secret hidden ecstasy about being exactly who we are, with exactly those who are in our lives, on the very path we find ourselves.
Not a fan of Charles Taylor in general (despite him being Canadian!), your stories totally crack me up. And imagine you didn't hear that knock on the bathroom door! We may not even be here chatting now. Maybe the universe is indeed a hyper-optimized algorithm running all the calculations that result in the ultimate harmony (or discord), and the counterfactuals and whatifs are in the multiverses -- as the physicists fancy ;) Also the bird poop part what so funny! :D
Amazing essay! Your topic today surprises me because I have just been thinking about exactly the same thing for the last few days. As I see it you have only one life and infinite choices, some decisions are smart, some are dumb, some are lucky and some are not but your present you is the result of all those thousands of choices that you make. And sometimes is not even a choice is just being in some place at a moment in time, I can recall in particular sitting in a classroom in New York many years ago and meeting a person which has become a good friend beside a business partner, that definitely has changed my life unexpectedly and hugely.
First, the photo you paired with your essay is so good Silvio! Second, what a wonderful reflection. I think too often people find themselves regretting things in life without considering how little changes would result in big changes (like your kids!). I enjoyed following your thought process that was less focused on right or wrong decisions but just musing on how things could have gone differently. Also, I'm very shocked a bird pooped on your head and am also convinced it was good luck!
I think about this all the time and I guess I am just blessed because every time I think about having lived another life for more than a few minutes, I literally panic that I would screw something up and not meet my wife.
Reading your piece prompted me to reflect on why I overanalyze the decisions I've made. I often feel frustrated by this rumination, but as you beautiful said, the negative space is a part of our portrait. We can find beauty and meaning in the coulda / woulda / shouldas of life.
Absolutely love this idea of negative space and the infinite possibility of life. You captured it wonderfully, Silvio. Something that really gripped me was the sentiment about how, to know someone intimately for who they are, you must also know everything they are not. Or, everything they did not choose. Beautiful beautiful!
What a great reframing of the "negative space", in such a useful way. Reading this first made me think of the movie Riders of Justice, which is a nihilistic, dark take on coincidences and different path lives take depending on choices we make, and your piece is the opposite: such a deep and profound way to "helps us accept who we are".
I love how your outlook is always realist with a good dash of positive, it's always helpful and comforting to go along with you in this intelligent musings, Silvio, thank you for writing!
PS. On another note, Run Lola Run also came to mind haha
I'm always inspired by your writing. This is beautiful: “Our lives are a collection of pivotal moments, and it's difficult not to become captivated by them, not to ruminate on what we would have been. These moments illuminate our lives from different angles and create narratives and stories that evoke a sense of vulnerability and highlight the complexities of our circumstances.”
You got me thinking about the time I stepped out of my shy / introverted shell in college and decided to go on a month-long trip to Italy with students I didn't know. It was my first trip to Europe, and it completely changed my life and relationship to architecture. I visited churches and cemeteries all over northern Italy (including the suburbs of Milan!) and Florence.
Coming up with an ‘answer’ for this piece is extremely difficult. Or rather, rendering it with the same clarity with which you managed to convey everything, is very ardouos. I think I am one of those people who stupidly imagines/dreams a thousand alternative lives per minute. At the same time I am aware of the choices made and the contingencies that have brought me where I am. Even when (most of the time) I'm not satisfied with the "consequences", I know that in that moment I felt like so: it was ‘right’ making a certain choice over another.
So right or wrong, I think it depends a bit on the approach one has to it and on the awareness of who one is and one's nature; on what we want: here I don't feel like giving too courtly opinions because I haven't figured it out for myself yet. And continuing to give free rein to the imagination of lives not lived, lost but also future perhaps still possible or impossible, makes me believe that something good has happened and that then anything could still happen. And maybe it's also this or above all this that drives us to move forward in general, when everything seems to us not going the right way. Contest with Rothman when he says “Often, these stories serve a didactic purpose; they provoke thoughts that bind us to our lives”. I don't know if I have understood the essence of the piece, but reading you, this is the reflection that I made within myself.
Beautiful essay!
Your story reminded me of an experience that has nothing to do with sliding doors, but rather with the impossibility of thinking about alternative unfolding. The impossibility of the multiverse, in short, or at least its infinite vastness and thus the essential futility of thinking about it.
The story is this: I was not yet 18 years old, and with friends we were looking at the stars in the sky. As we talked about the stars, the conversation expanded, just like the universe: "Our galaxy is not the only one, so how many are there? And after that? Is this the only universe, or are there others?" All the way to the ultimate limit, which is: is there a limit? What do all universes contain? The whole or nothingness?
I think this is the limit of the brain, or at least my brain: beyond this limit it cannot process anything else.
It's not even a story, but I well remember having to stop thinking because my head seemed to explode.
As always, yours is a wonderful article full of reflections that I save and work on for days.
The Roberto Benigni movie sounds really fun. I loved the idea that a bird shitting on your head played a part in shaping or at least blessing your destiny. And the Sartre quote especially regarding the role of our negative space seems so true, but I've never been conscious of the weight it carries. I suspect that our conscious awareness of our lives and our choices only scratches the very surface of the truth. I think sometimes we imagine that we're slight victims of outcomes or directions we wound up taking that things could have been otherwise, but I suspect we're more in control of the whole thing than we admit. Perhaps on some level we've freely chosen exactly what we have, and on the surface we might feign regret, or complaint, or longing for what could have been, while we actually have a secret hidden ecstasy about being exactly who we are, with exactly those who are in our lives, on the very path we find ourselves.
Not a fan of Charles Taylor in general (despite him being Canadian!), your stories totally crack me up. And imagine you didn't hear that knock on the bathroom door! We may not even be here chatting now. Maybe the universe is indeed a hyper-optimized algorithm running all the calculations that result in the ultimate harmony (or discord), and the counterfactuals and whatifs are in the multiverses -- as the physicists fancy ;) Also the bird poop part what so funny! :D
Amazing essay! Your topic today surprises me because I have just been thinking about exactly the same thing for the last few days. As I see it you have only one life and infinite choices, some decisions are smart, some are dumb, some are lucky and some are not but your present you is the result of all those thousands of choices that you make. And sometimes is not even a choice is just being in some place at a moment in time, I can recall in particular sitting in a classroom in New York many years ago and meeting a person which has become a good friend beside a business partner, that definitely has changed my life unexpectedly and hugely.
First, the photo you paired with your essay is so good Silvio! Second, what a wonderful reflection. I think too often people find themselves regretting things in life without considering how little changes would result in big changes (like your kids!). I enjoyed following your thought process that was less focused on right or wrong decisions but just musing on how things could have gone differently. Also, I'm very shocked a bird pooped on your head and am also convinced it was good luck!