Life in Progress

Maybe in another life, I would not be a lawyer. There is a good part of my work that I have enjoyed very much but there is also the dreary and routine part that I have to put up with. So yes if there were a parallel universe, please take me there. I know there is no perfect package for life, I do reckon with the choices I have made and I know that all packages have certain pitfalls . But that does not mean I cannot imagine what if there were another life, what would I like it to be and what kind of choices  could I have made. The truth is I probably would have made the same mistakes and similar irrational decisions even if I had the benefits of the hindsight I now possess. If I had not been impulsive and the kind of person who does not plan and see where life takes her, I might have become cynical and too pragmatic and I would not be the person I am now.

An old school friend is happy to find that I am a free thinker as she is one. Many people she and I know are either Christians or Taoists or embrace some religious faith. But I do believe in rebirths and evolution. I also believe that there are many different life packages as such there could be various permutations of us depending on the circumstances we have landed ourselves in.

Maybe in Another Life written by Taylor Jenkins Reid is a fiction that depicts how different consequences follow when the protagonist makes a different decision at a certain point of her life. At the age of twenty-nine, Hannah Marie Martin still has no idea what she wants to do with her life. She has lived and held countless jobs in six different cities. She decides to go back to her roots in Los Angeles after having  a disastrous relationship with a  man who is  already married.  To celebrate her first night back, her best friend, Gabby takes her out to a bar where she bumps into her high school boyfriend, Ethan whom she still has feelings for. The story is about what happens if she goes home with Gabby and what happens if she does not go home with Gabby. Maybe in Another Life is about how Hannah’s decision can result in different stories  in two parallel universes. The point is, a different decision brings about a different outcome, it  thus prompts the questions  :  Is much of our life determined by chance ? Is there only one soul-mate?

One of the characters in the novel says,

‘ And I was reading about different theories about the universe. I was really taken with this one theory that states that everything that is possible happens. That means that when you flip a quarter, it doesn’t come down heads or tails. It comes up heads and tails. Every time you flip a coin and it comes up heads, you are merely in the universe where the coin came up heads. There is another version of you out there, created the second the quarter flipped, who saw it come up tails. This is happening every second of every day. The world is splitting further and further into an infinite number of parallel universes where everything that could happen is happening .This is completely plausible, by the way. It is a legitimate interpretation of quantum mechanics. It’s entirely possible that every time we make a decision, there is a version of us out there somewhere who made a different choice. An infinite number of versions of ourselves are living out the consequences of every single possibility in our lives. What I’m gettingin at here is that I know there may be universes out there where I made different choices that led me shomewhere else, led me to someone else. “

Vevey  December 2012 

Maybe in Another Life reminds me of The Versions of Us where its author, Laura Barnett gave three possible outcome to the central characters.click  In concurrent storylines, Taylor Jenkins Reid explores the concepts of fate and chance and offers two alternate realities. I have a penchant for books that talk about choices and destiny and I do not think that what is meant to be meant to be. I am naturally drawn to a fiction that is written based on the concept of love, chance and fate and how a single decision can lead to different outcome that not only affects the protagonist but also the characters around her. I have always believed that everything is inter-related as the world is connected somehow.

Sliding Doors

Cambridge

My late dad used to say that we are responsible for our own destiny and I am inclined to believe that to a large extent we must be  responsible for the choices we have made. We do not have a choice as to who our parents are nor can we choose our lineage. Everyone is born with certain genetic  and psychology makeup and thus we have to live within some limitations but these limitations or disadvantages should not stop us from making the best of what we are given and become who we want to be. 

Hongkong

In everyday life, we make decisions and  there are times when we  look back,  we wonder if we should have or could have made different ones. If I could be shown a movie of all the roads I had not taken and where they would have led me, I might or might not want to watch it. While many of our decisions are shaped by the environment we are in and our education,  I feel that it is our strengths, weaknesses, desires and flaws in our characters that have led us to the circumstances we land ourselves in.

The Versions of Us is Laura Barnett’s debut novel that works on the theme that there could be different versions of us that might lead to  alternate endings. The novel reads like three different novellas about the same protagonists. The novel is best read in one seating as it makes reading easier when the different versions simultaneously unfold the different paths taken by the protagonists , Eva Edelstein and Jim Taylor. When I read it in between my work and activities that need attention, I found myself revisiting the previous pages to refresh my memory in order to  get a clear view of the version I was reading as I swapped from one version to another .  Eva  and Jim Taylor are essentially the same people in all three versions. Eva is an easy to like character as she is sensible and strong. Eva becomes a writer while Jim is a solicitor turned painter and artist ;their stories began when they were nineteen and university students at Cambridge. 

In version one, as Eva swerves to miss a small dog, her bicyle hits a nail and the tyre is punctured. Jim passes by and offers to mend it and they fall in love. Eva breaks off with David, the boyfriend she has and marries Jim.

Later , Eva will think, If it hadn’t been for that rusty nail, Jim and I would never have met.

In version two,  Eva’s bike narrowly misses a dog which skitters towards her  and she is all shaken when she stops.  Jim asks if she is alright.

‘Are you all right there?’ Another man was approaching from the opposite direction : a boy, really , about her age, a college scarf looped loosely over his tweed jacket.

‘ Quite all right, thank you,’  she said primly. Their eyes met briefly as she remounted- his an uncommonly dark blue, framed by long, girlish lashes –for a second she was sure she knew him, so sure that she opened her mouth to frame a greeting . But then, just as quickly, she doubted herself , said nothing, and pedaled on. As soon as she arrived at Professor Farley’s rooms and began to read out her essay on the Four Quartets, the whole thing slipped from her mind. 

In version two, Eva marries David.

In version three, Eva’s bike hits the nail and Jim helps fix  the puncture. She ends up falling for Jim but she decides to do the right thing by marrying David, her boyfriend then. She subsequently finds herself unhappy in her marriage. On New Year’s Eve, David, an actor and Eva attend  a party  at the Hancock Park Home of David’s agent in Los Angeles.

‘Eva stands alone, drinking champagne, looking down at her hateful pink dress. She has an uncomfortable vision, suddenly, of her entire relationship with David as an unspooling sequence of these moments, a shifting film-strip of inappropriate dresses,worn to parties at which she knows no one.’

I have always been fascinated by themes about chance,coincidences and the big question of 'what if'. Are our lives  pre-ordained or the result of random meaningless encounters or serendipitous moments? Every decision and choice we have made maps  the course of our lives. Some moments  do change everything. Whatever knocks and hitches we face along the bumpy roads of life may or may not be the  consequences of our choices. We can only hope that these hiccups help us to become better people.

Barnett's debut novel cleverly explores the nature of love and the possibilities about how there might be some moments when our lives could have taken a different course. The author gives us three possible versions of what possibly happens in the future for the protagonists. click

Cambridge