To The Multiverse
The first time I considered the weight of my own existence was when I was seven years old, in the middle of an examination hall at my middle school. As I lifted my head up from my paper for a few moments, I remember looking around at the hundreds of other students spread out across the hall, thinking, what am I doing? What is happening? Is this really happening? It felt incredibly bizarre, randomly questioning my existence in the middle of an exam. Nothing life-changing had happened to me, it was an ordinary day. Yet, as I watched the invigilators, the school support staff and a boy scribbling furiously next to me, I felt my body sink into the chair. Looking up at the dull ceiling of the hall, I felt utterly and totally insignificant.
The second time was in high school when, using the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics in particular, I began to scratch the absurdly large surface of the world of metaphysics. The ramifications of such a theory for the humanities piqued my intense curiosity. It implied that every decision made in the past, including those one might regret making and those that never came to pass, might have taken place in a different universe. It might even have implied that numerous universes are running these various scenarios concurrently.
Of course, this metaphysical theory, which I do not pretend to understand in all of its glory, indicates several thousand versions of myself living out their separate lives. As is typically characteristic to me, my curiosity has gnawed away at my brain, leaving me with a desire to sort out exactly what sort of versions of myself are out there in different multiverses right now. .
The Tanushri typing this article out in her bedroom in the late hours of the night likes to share food with her loved ones and going for long walks, wandering aimlessly around her school halls with her friends, in her community with her parents. She enjoys spending a ridiculous amount of time creating Spotify playlists which she then repeatedly plays until they trigger memories of a certain feeling that will eventually make her feel nostalgic and miserable. She likes taking pictures of her friends and family, capturing them in moments she would like to cherish forever. She can bake great cookies and she always overindulges in different types of sweets that leave her guiltily longing for more. Of course, she loves to write.
Perhaps, there is also the Tanushri that was not discouraged by the lack of progress evident in the teacher’s comments in the margins of her elementary school science notebook. Maybe instead of carrying around a laptop and a notebook to concoct fictional worlds that hold entire pieces of her heart, she would have carried around a rough book with a slew of different reactions and potential experiments to research. She would have loved to watch the colour change in a solution as she shook the conical flask. She would never have thought twice about the matter being created at the will of her hands and would have a little glint in her eye as she made mentally jotted down the other experiments she could conduct.
Let’s not forget the interior design phase she briefly had in high school. There was a period of time that I could only calm my nerves with helping my mom set up the new house we bought in India, and going through the painstakingly arranged pinterest board for indoor inspiration. In this version of myself, I would be in the library crying over wall colours and tile materials instead of potential loopholes in my plot. She would have created visually engaging projects. She would have found purpose within creating comforting spaces for others.
But I did not. My chef career was short-lived past the age of 6, no matter how intricate my “restaurants” were. I quit Indian classical music after 5 years because I made my first mistake in front of my entire class and burst into tears.
It's difficult for me not to harbour regrets about some aspects of my life. Yet, when I initially read about this theory for the first time, I felt hysterical — the idea of numerous versions of myself bouncing around the cosmos, wreaking havoc? I still struggle to manage myself. I now, however, take comfort in this notion. I know my place in the universe. Vital to few, important to some, a face in the crowd to others, and a stranger to most. Overall insignificant in the greater cycle of nature. Which isn’t demeaning. It is simply a reminder that I don’t have to be everything at once. Armed with that understanding, it felt like the entire universe had unlocked itself, stretching out before me, comforting me with the fact that we, too, are limitless.
