I loved you first, I loved you first..."
Regina Spektor
Why are some moments more memorable than others? What makes someone special? When is it that wandering in space becomes aloofness? Who decides that I am, indeed, a unique individual? There is something mind-boggling about facing these interrogations inside out and wrestling with whatever conclusions are derived from them. When you are used to walking steadily along a familiar road, it can come as a revelation to explore what makes you yourself.
Chaos in osmosis
So, we have our instances of being tempted by the rabbit hole, often for the sake of seeing something new or uncovering well-hidden secrets...and possible treasures. We look for opportunities to slip away from reality and jump into the fantastic. It can be a house that we believe is inhabited by a ghost, or a twist in our chest that tells us that the person in front of us is "the one". At times, we are convinced to have received a mission from above to do what we do. We go through the experience and end up self-aggrandised and relieved, somehow, that our identity is once again preserved from the rub of others.
But we can't prove any of this. There is no formula to extract from our reflections, no theorem to conceptualise our findings. We can check with peers whether what we are saying makes sense and review it all in therapy, yet it remains immaterial. How can it be real, when it can't be seen, touched, smelt, heard nor tasted? Even worst, how can I be sure that what happened only ever happened to me and me only? There definitely is no guarantee in the uniqueness of my escape: there might be countless of others who have swirled into the same black hole and shut themselves from the scrutiny of the outside world meanwhile.
Quizzing the unique
The fact is, experimenting with ourselves might initially appear like the most singular thing to do, because it's the raging impulse to KNOW that pushes us past the horizon's line. The path is infinitely uncertain and we are on a quest to make sense of the probabilities ahead: it's a question of cataloguing the world around us and building up our own internal framework. As we walkabout, we trace our past, dot our present and sketch our future in quick strokes, since time is always running away when space closes upon us.
In the end, each pathway becomes uniquely integrated in knitting our world line. The thread was stamped by us and for us, and no one else. This unique footprint is the essence of our existence, simply because although we might have crossed and followed others along the way, we always succumb to our own wanderlust. This is also what helps us shape a universe of our own aside other multiverses. We are all on our own planets, insulated from time to time, colliding at other hours. And the memories and experiences we have are merely what remains after our precious biosphere has been thoroughly annihilated.
