What the other me is doing

Many years ago I used to be a regular fan of the stories of John Wyndham. A recurring theme in his short stories was a situation in which somebody’s time somehow split, and different selves were able to travel into the future, following quite different trajectories determined by apparently insignificant choices. The curious twist, if I remember rightly, was that there was always a possibility that these divergent selves might meet. Graham Greene toyed with a similar idea after he saw notices in the press of his own attendance at events of which he had been unaware. Was there a doppelgänger Greene out there somewhere?

I was reminded of these ideas this afternoon when I decided to read through something I wrote more than twenty years ago. One of the courses I enjoyed teaching the most when I was an academic was entitled Society as Theatre. In it I looked critically at the way the metaphor of the theatre had been used in sociology, suggesting that this could be improved greatly in its utility and interest if the writers had known more about the theatre. So I looked at the work of figures such as Stanislavsky, Brecht, Grotowski and Boal, exploring their relevance in theatre workshops as well as in lectures. It was quite a popular course and I always enjoyed teaching it.

Towards the end of my time as a university teacher I decided that I would write up all this material as a book, and completed a draft of it. Then I chose instead to take early retirement in order to fulfil my long-standing ambition to be an artist, and never completed the revision of it. At the moment I am engaged in tidying up a lot of old papers, and I have spent a good part of the day reading through the typescript. It has been an interesting experience.

I will certainly want to keep this material, although I doubt that it will ever be worth my while to put in the time needed in order to revise it to a publishable standard. Frankly, however, I have both enjoyed the task and astonished myself by the quality of what I wrote. Consequently, for the second time this month I have found myself speculating about what my life might have become had I made a different decision at certain points. The first time was when I was thinking about my year doing an MA in Canada, and I took to wondering what might have happened had I decided to stay there instead of returning to the UK. Along similar lines, what would I have become had I stayed in academia and finished the book?

These have not been regretful, “If only!” experiences. There is no feeling on my part that I would possibly have been happier/more successful/better-off (or what have you) had I decided differently. It does bring it home to me, however, just how contingent is our sense of identity. I am what I am, sure enough, but there is another “me” out there who might possibly have lived. I wonder if we will ever meet, and what we might make of each other.

Incidentally, my wife and I will be traveling down to Worcester tomorrow, where I will be hanging an exhibition of my work the the Cathedral. On journeys such as this I can never be sure about internet communication, so it could be a couple of days before I am back posting again. (Reminder too self: I shall have to leave the hedgehog an extra supply of food before I go.)