Yesterday got me thinking and that led
me to wondering. Now, I do have a bit of a disclaimer here. I promise this is
going to me my last “lamenting for what was” article. I don’t want to voice
these concerns to the group because I don’t want to bring everybody down. So I
will post it here so I can get these thoughts out of my head.
Star Trek had this theory called IDIC,
which means “Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations.” Basically, take
every choice you have ever made in life and somewhere out there is an alternate
you in an alternate dimension that made the opposite choice. If you had a
choice between going to OU and OSU and you chose OU, somewhere out there is a
“you” in an alternate dimension that went to OSU. And if a person were capable
of observing this alternate dimension, they could see how differently their
lives could have transpired if they would have made different choices.
I mean you could get down into the
minutiae of your decisions. “Should I go to McDonalds for a McGriddle or Carl’s
Jr for a Texas Toast sandwich.” Yeah, life’s choices are harder than others.
I think the major tent poles in
people’s lives are Career, Marriage, and Children because those three events
shape your life the most. Part of me often wonders what different ways my life
could have gone. I find it is best not to dwell on such things because it is
wasted energy. And yet, I think everyone can grow curious about the different
avenues we could have gone down.
You could look around and say, “What
if I would have done this?” What if I would have finished college? Would I have
been making a six figure salary for a Fortune 500 company? What if I had tried
meth? Would I have ended up in prison? There are some paths that you could look
upon and say, “Why didn’t I get that life with the big house and the supermodel
wife?” And then there is the darker side of that coin where you can say, “Hey,
at least I am not THAT guy.”
Of course, futility has a way of
creeping in. Like what happened to us 293 days ago. What if I was working in an
office building down in Tulsa instead of in a highly defensible grocery store
with a plethora of food? There is a very real chance that I would be dead right
now and my son fending for himself. Or I might not even have a son. I might not
have a legacy to carry on the Mathews name.
But I often wonder, where would we all
be if not for this zombie apocalypse? Surely, Janet, Becca and Ashlynn would still
be alive. Would Audrey have lived out her dream of marrying Lucas? Jennifer is
far too good looking. For all I know she could have been married and working on
a second child. Eric could have gone on to be a detective down in Tulsa or
Broken Arrow busting up drug labs. Justin might have been granted his own store
or become a regional manager at the major pharmacy chain he worked for. That is
the thing, you just never know.
But again, there is that darker
alternative too. Kanen, Lance, Hunter, even Joe or Luke or Kasondra. They are
all young kids relatively speaking. Maybe the zombie apocalypse was the best
thing that ever happened to them.
Maybe this whole scenario spared them
of tragedies like divorce, drunk driving accidents, drug addictions… And that
is the thing. We will never know. But I think about that a lot. I know. It is
wasted energy. But I still think about it…
