Something I’ve been meaning to write about for a few days - but kept putting off because the subject matter feels particularly heavy for me to think about, let alone write about - is about my ‘triple-life’. Also, this is mostly a thought-stream, so may involve lots of waffling and jump around, but hopefully it’s consistent at least…
Now many people, including myself, seem to have many personas in terms of who they are with themselves, with family, with significant others, with friends, with colleagues, with strangers, etc., though I often hear these personas being categorised into a binary distinction of personal and professional lives, as if living a double-life, if you will. Whilst I can understand this, it personally always seemed like a hassle to me that I imagine I’d find exhausting to indulge in - pretending to be somebody other than myself at work or wherever seemed like not only extra effort (kind of implying who I’d be personally would either be at least ‘good enough’ for a professional setting or conversely not suitable and therefore not ‘have to’ consider a professional setting in the first place =/ I’d like to think I strive for the former…) but also a compromise on who I am.
The thing is, though, I kinda felt that way about having a double-life because I find being ‘me’ exhausting enough as it is already, in that who I am in front of others is typically a very filtered and relatively refined version of myself that’s constantly trying to consider what everybody’s thinking and how they’re feeling as well as how certain things being said or done may make them feel, and not just by myself but by others, too (which is why I find one-on-one interactions much easier in general because as soon as another person is present I have a hard time trying to juggle and anticipate it all just as we currently do with the three-body problem in physics). I’d like to point out (perhaps to convince myself, too…who knows?), this isn’t to say this is not me, or a a dishonest/false version of me, but rather I see it like the difference between “I’ll be honest.” and “I’ll be honest and frank.” (which I imagine still won’t sit well with some and am open to feedback on this of course). This is a bit of a tangent and one I intend to write about properly/elaborately in a separate post, but for now I will say that there are three quantities in mathematics of particular significance to me (though no disrespect meant to Euler’s Equation!) that I in turn try to ‘mirror’ in reality (given how the analogies I tend to try to understand Life/Existence/the Universe with are pretty much all centred around maths, physics, and computer simulations…): Zero, One, and Infinity. I generally think/feel as if I (as well as possibly most, if not all, others) typically have a version of themselves for Zero others i.e. who they are when by themselves, for One other i.e. who they are when with some individual they hold in a particularly significant regard, and for Infinite others, i.e. who they are when with everybody else in general. This isn’t to say it’s a strict ‘law’ or anything, especially between One and Infinity, plus I guess there is somewhat of a goal for Zero and One to be the same, but it’s a framework that’s there in my mind.
Aaaaaaannyway, that tangent aside, the thing I actually intended to get down in writing is my so-called triple-life, which, in short, is basically me trying to live in a way that keeps the three possible outcomes I see for my Life (and the respective paths to each of those outcomes)…possible. What I mean by that is that the three outcomes that I see, I also regard as mutually exclusive, and because I can’t figure out which one to commit to, I try to ensure all three outcomes are simultaneously possible at any given moment. This is, as you can expect (if I haven’t confused you with my scatty narrative, sorry!), very difficult to do and, again, incredibly exhausting. Yet I feel it is necessary =/ This is a very brief take on my triple-life:
Suicide - outcome seems most fitting and feels most right, as in the thing I’m ‘meant to do’, for various reasons, but I think is wrong - likelihood: varies depending on how I’m feeling;
Conceding that most of the problems in both my family and in society probably won't change and cycles will repeat, and that the rest of my days will most likely be spent just fighting those problems and battles where I can and looking after my family/others and teaching them to cope with things as best as I can - outcome feels like defeat and too much of a compromise, that the needs will always come above my wants, and will probably end up with me losing my battle against cynicism and becoming a husk - likelihood: seemingly very high as this seems the most realistic and seems to match my current trajectory; and
That things will actually work out and improve, and those problems in my family and society will be resolved, or at least improved/resolved enough that I can have that life I used to imagine when I was a child where I am a good husband and a great father - outcome is the one I actually want, but also seems naive and idealistic of me, yet maybe it is possible to change the world… - likelihood: seemingly very low.
(I was going to make a mini, rather clichéd, three-panel comic summarising these with a filled black panel, a mundane/bleak grayscale outlook on life for the second, and a happy outlook third panel filled with colour, but I’m terrible at drawing as it is that without my tablet there’s even less chance of it looking like how it does in my mind.)
Originally it was only #3. Then on my 15th birthday #1 came into play and was meant to take effect on my 16th birthday, though #3 would still twinkle from time to time. Evidently, this did not happen, and I initially thought #1 would take a little longer than expected (in my mind the hold-up was because I still hadn’t worked out a way to morally justify it, but it’s very possible I was in denial about it - who knows?) so still it was predominantly #1 with a few appearances by #3 here and there. I didn’t consciously realise but during my late teens and early twenties is when #2 started popping up more and more, and so, for pretty much the last decade of my life, I’ve been constantly trying to juggle these three outcomes. And like I said, they’re fairly mutually exclusive so it makes me hold back on a lot of things, particularly the idea of a relationship. As in, #3 is the outcome I’d actually like, but given the likelihoods of #1 and #2, and even the fact that I think about them as ‘viable’ outcomes, I don’t think it’s exactly moral/fair for me to have a relationship with somebody whilst keeping those possibilities in mind =/ Incidentally, this has put me in an odd situation for many years in that I feel whatever love, affection, compassion, kindness, etc. I have, I feel I should share or even ‘give away’ to others in general rather than ‘reserving’ for that ‘special someone’ (because if you have something good, you want to share it, or at least I hope that’s the case), which people can often somewhat understandably misinterpret (though still I wish they’d ask and try to understand rather than generalise and assume). Even though this is arguably not what the following scene was about, I often think of this rather climactic moment - kinda a spoiler if you haven’t seen it though! - from the film Gattaca when dwelling on this predicament - of not saving anything for the swim back, because there is no swim back.)
The apparently obvious solution to my dilemma of course would be to commit to one of the three outcomes, i.e. #3, and disregard the other two, though of course how that plays out is how the three outcomes came to be in the first place. So I don’t know. It’s hard. And emotions are hard. And people don’t often make sense. So I don’t know how to do this and I still wish I could just commit to #1 and be done with it, but Hope seems to glimmer on, even though I now consider Hope a double-edged sword =/ I think I’ll stop there. Thanks if you read this.