Dark Matter Dilemma
Inquiry Statement
There's a novel. The main character is a scientist, and is kidnapped, by himself, from a parallel universe. They are switched, and at some point along the way, our M1 is lost between worlds, opening and closing the door of his machine to reveal a different reality each time, unsure of how to get "home".
He meets several other versions of himself, and by stories end, has spent a great deal of time becoming humbled to the fact that he should want for nothing and appreciate the life he has, for other versions of himself were not as fortunate.
I almost dropped Bob, surely fatally and catastrophically at that.
I imagined it and felt the tightening of my chest yank at me while the freezing sweat pulled my skin tight and set it ablaze in the heat of sadness and guilt.
My mind panicked and I registered the changed pulse of my heart, hearing the material of his skull smash against the cold and uncaring floor beneath me as I fumbled my holstering maneuver and let him slip through my grasp.
I stood there for a moment, having not dropped my emotional and physical support cane, and thought: in a different version of all this, I did just drop Bobert...
A moment longer and I was mourning in solidarity with some other poor Isaac, off in an adjacent bubble 27, 13, 1, over, up, across, or down, having an emotional and mental schism at the thought of turning the light in the dark room on and inspecting the damage.
THAT version of me never learned to repair the broken things, so he will have to learn, or maybe he will not. Maybe he doesn't have the same attachment to Bobert as I do. Ten Thousand Isaacs just bought Bobert today, and half, or ten million as many, never even named Bobert, "Bobert", at all...
Only I have this existence. Only I have this life. So, of the Isaacs who are living most similar to me, I am the one who did not destroy his cane this evening, and I will do whatever I must to ensure that THIS timeline remains the most beneficial of our little cohort of co-existence within the multiverse.
Keeping that same energy while running the same logic, we will not see progress until we make an unwillingness to do what is required the a problem for some other poor version of you to figure out.
I love myself, and I love all versions of myself, as in some way, they are a part of me.
However, I am not obligated to give them what I wish to have for myself, so I will steal from them all the blessings and joys of this life that I can possibly secure for myself and leave for them the ash of all the ill things that could happen to a soul such as mine.
Follow me now;
If I steal the best version of reality away from the others and make this life the version of my existence where only great things happen, that reality is no longer possible for another branch. There is an Isaac who was never adopted and had a traditional upbringing, but that Isaac never learned to craft weapons of words, and only the Isaacs of THIS Cohort learned to fight back when felled low.
Of these, even fewer have been successful in building a route from ruin, and how many have actually cobbled the path to progress? This line of causality is mine alone, and I own it.
Stay with me, Lector Carissime; when it comes to securing the best outcomes for yourself and doing what is required to build the life and future that you desire, be greedy, ruthless, uncaring, and selfish beyond reason.
Do not allow a less deserving version of yourself to claim what you deserve. SOME of you are going to reach your highest ambitions, why the fuck shouldn't it be you?
If there are infinite versions of yourself, there are infinite pathways on which you can choose to branch down which may lead to better outcomes. Why would you allow entire groups of potential desirable futures go to a different copy of you just to give yourself the gift of laziness, unhealthiness, bitterness, and general lack?
If you are not thinking about and working towards building a better life for yourself today, some other not so poor minded version of you may have spent the day at the Altars of Execution, and hit the breakthrough that changes everything...
for them...
"every decision you have ever made has led you to this moment" - Maul
I like Maul as a case study for resilience. First Sith to appear in forever and the poor guy literally gets cut in half. Through spite and an unwillingness to allow his ambitions of power to be snuffed out so easily, he keeps himself alive. By determination he cobbles together a syndicate to rule over, and spends the rest of his life working to get back all that was taken from him.
There's a little more than a little nuance here, but rock with me
You are the surviving product of countless decisions, events, accidents, interactions, failures, repairs, and refusals, and the present version of you carries a peculiar obligation to protect the continuity of what all those previous versions managed to preserve.
You have fought too hard and sacrificed soo much already just to get to this place where you complain about the circumstances being too great
There are infinite versions of all of this, but we are responsible for the one we actually inhabit.
So taking it higher and aiming at life and our deeds, the question changes from "What would a better version of me have done differently to prevent this pain that I'm wrapped in?" to "What does this me do now using all the lessons from all the versions to make the absolute best of what I have before me right now?"
The only branch over which you have any meaningful authority is the one containing your present consciousness; you cannot go back and make every branch produce the outcome you wanted, and you cannot go back and correct your own action to prevent mistakes.
You cannot rescue every version of yourself and you cannot repair every possible life from the past that was broken before you. What is lost is gone, and you must not dwell on what is gone.
You can, however, learn from the failures and successes of all versions of you and use that material to cobble any route from ruin, and take those lessons and apply them to your existence where applicable.
If we exist as one instance of infinite, the version of yourself who refuses to do what is required for ascension into your next stage of life still gets the consequences of events that happen upon him as a result of remaining in place.
In Te Ipso Bellum. Bellum verum est. Nulli sunt cives innocentes. The War of Wills is spiritual in nature, and it is fought on battlegrounds within. This is a total conflict, as we are beset by forces of Darkness for control over our very minds.
The war is within
The war is real
There are no civilians
Refusing to choose is itself a choice.
The branch where you don't repair the thing which is broken in your life and or within your own mental operating system is still a branch which exists and may lead you to more destruction by other means. The branch where you don't build to become who you are required to be for the life you desire is a branch that may be within your grasp if you will listen:
If today you tolerate rot within your life because confronting it is uncomfortable, you may remain, forever, where proper progress is truly impossible.
There is no future self or Man-made Caesar coming to save you. There is only another version of you that inherits what this version does.
You are righteous in your lust for power and control, and you are pious in using every advantage given to you to secure the future you seek.
You are claiming a right to defend the continuity of the life you have built, and you are fighting for something bigger than what you can even imagine in this current form and version of yourself.
Do Not Forget This.
I do not charge you to save every possible life but to protect this one and become the highest and most elevated version of yourself that this chain of decisions has made possible.
Mandatum Primi...
If there are infinite possible versions of you, then today, you will stop wasting energy grieving the versions you cannot become. Your responsibility is concentrated on the one that exists.
You don't want to become the version of yourself who failed, but you absolutely want to interrogate him.
What did he ignore? Where did he hesitate? What did he destroy? What did he fail to repair? What did he believe was too difficult? Where does he lack? HOW does he fail?
Now you take that intelligence and leave the lesser version where it falls.
There may be infinite versions of me, but I only get to command one. Therefore I will make this one count. Let the other Isaacs make the painful mistakes. I will study their pain and harvest lessons from their failures as I take this thread further, Ad Astra...
There are infinite Isaacs who have already been felled and failed. I have no obligation to join them. You have no obligation to remain among the versions of yourself who did not win their ambitions.
You do not need to overcome or out-perform every possible version of yourself, but only to ensure that this one does not surrender and does not quit.
Take The Crusade, Lector Carissime
We are called to fight...
Satis Armatus; Ficta Moderniae Delenda Est
Burn them all
Go, Now, and Take No Quarter.
- Creator Captain TheIsaacLester
Lux Ex Tenebris
Per Aspera Ad Astra
Legio Sum
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