Because nothing worthwhile ever happened to me on the 11th.

[sorcyress]

Seriously. Not even the BtW files are providing anything interesting. So, I guess I'll actually have to come up with new content for this journal, rather than reflecting on the old stuff. Man, that's so lame! (*grin*)

So, what's on my mind right now!

Well, remember how I mentioned at the end of my last post that I would love to have a nice chat with the me who took the other path? As I wandered over to Magus's last night, I wound up having a speculative version of that chat, which, with the knowledge of what her life was like, later led to me and Magus having a fascinating discussion about alternate universe selves.

This was started by me going "Huh. You're kinda the lynchpin for a substantial amount of my life right now, aren't you?"

I'm pretty sure this is very true --one fragile little event, and we never remet, or things changed and rearranged in such a way that we never became close friends or partners. And my entire world changes --sans Magus, it's MUCH less likely I'll have managed to get as thoroughly into the dance I do (though I might more regularly do swing and contra) and while I'd certainly still be a gamer, I'd probably get to do less gaming. (Maybe --I would presumably still meet Dan4th, but I'm unsure I'd have the motivation to go to the strange internet man's house without someone else to watch my back occasionally)

More noticeably, without the dancing, I'd be out two *very* close friendships, and a handful of growing ones --I simply would've never met the SCD crowd. Swarthmore would no longer be able to be called the official school of making my life complicated since 2008. ;D

I've begun to sortof rough out some other lynchpins and ripplepoints¹ of my life, mostly by analyzing what sort of different relationships I would have with the world and the people in it.

Forget the big crucial events in my life --what were the silly little things that fundementally changed me, for better or for worse? November 21st, 2007? March 24th, August 7th, 2006?² And what were the things I can't even recognize that changed who I am? What made me stop trusting? What made me realize I like girls; that I'm poly?

What would my life be like without Veronica? (Indeed, would I have a life? Her and Kat have saved me a dozen times and more from ever thinking about suicide in anything but the most speculative of terms.) What would my life be like if my parents had stopped at two children, or one. Or if I grew up in my city, instead of Columbia?

The tiniest events at the time can make the biggest ripples in the end. This cute blonde chick saying hi at a girl scout thing, almost without reason, led to my wonderful friendship with Aren, and arguably, because of who wound up hanging out with who, with Blue. Two unthrown birthday parties are responsible for the best friendship I've ever had³. An invented name leads to my broken heart.⁴

A perfect synchronous double take changes the rest of my life.⁵

A business trip to Seattle in 1999, leads to me joining a web forum in 2003, leads me to running past the do not enter sign in the airport to hug the woman who means almost more to me than life itself in 2007⁶. What if I had never joined Sluggy? What if she had never sent that first IM?

And yes. I fear this entry is getting weird and rambly and boring. It's your turn to be weird and rambly! Tell me some of your lynchpins, some of your alternate timelines.

~Sor
MOOP!

1: Oh, just go play Chrononauts. It's my favourite Looney Labs card game, and it's full of Time Travel, okay? It's pretty rad.

2: Okay, just because I've been making an effort to be less cryptic in here doesn't mean I'm going to let you see everything there is to know. Both those dates, things happened. That's all.

3: That being said, some things are plenty allowed to be public. Veronica and I became best friends because my mom and her dad were friends in high school, our birthdays were three days apart, and neither of us had gotten a birthday party that year. Seriously.

4: Sometimes I will still call Chris Momo.

5: If I could get video footage of any one moment in my life, I would honestly probably choose this just because it was so movie perfect. I was wandering, our eyes met, I passed him, confused, we turned at the exact same time to go "OH, it's YOU!"

6: We were given the first Sluggy Freelance book on that trip. The rest, as they say, is history.

Comments

[swingerzetta.livejournal.com]

Similarily, the biggest linchpin, to use your words, in my life was when a friend of mine sent me a link to a rather amusing page of a comic called Sluggy.

I think I have high standards for people I'll spend my time with. if I hadn't found the people I've found through sluggy, I'd have found other, awesome people. I'm curious about them, now. There are awesome people I haven't managed to find yet!

[kdsorceress.livejournal.com]

*grins* Sluggy is life or somesuch...

Ooo! Good luck seeking them out! (I wounder how depressing it would be to write stories about them)

~Sor

[harena.livejournal.com]

Same here, methinks. If not for the people i've met through Sluggy, my life would have be singulary more Ordinary, i think. Less loved & supported. i would not have felt safe enough to allow the real me through & made the leaps in my mental developments that i have. i am not convinced i would have found anyone {as awesome} otherwise.

Another biggie is, of course, Woozle. We frequently daydream about what would have happened if our paths had crossed sooner (Because seriously, how on earth didn't they? We grew up 3 streets away from each other, for crying out loud) and preventing me from ending up with the Life i am stuck withhave now. What points in time would have made the best difference. When would have either of us been ready for the other. And would have we been able to be close if either of us could have prevented the death of Jenny? And so on.

i more recently pondered what would had happened if W had not turned up in my life & i'm pretty sure i would not have gotten the courage/strength to leave Chas and may well have lost the energy to stay alive & joined Jenny... i certainly would not have found Sluggy because at the very least, the notion of online comics (which then in a series of connections led me to Sluggy; twas a crossover, i think with UF) was introduced to me by W and at the most, he's responsible for me making the leap from dial-up to always on high speed.

So thereyago.

. o O (wait wait, Swinger said something about having high standards for people he will spend time with... he spends time with... this means... *blinkblink*)

[dodger77.livejournal.com]

Having thought about it for a while, I've come to realize the massive influence my older brother has had on me. Without him, I'm fairly certain I would be a completely different person. So different I can't even begin to imagine what brotherless!me* would be like. And this was before I remembered he was the one who introduced me to Sluggy in the first place!

*When in Rome...

[tirerim.livejournal.com]

Hm. Identifying linchpins in my life is hard. Going to Swarthmore is the big one, but since both my parents went there, a lot of paths lead to it. The most obvious one that doesn't would be me not getting in, but I don't know of any single event that would result in that; the admissions office's ways are inscrutable (and, by doctrine, infallible, at least with positive decisions).

Besides that, there was one important missed (last) train, and later a very poor decision on my part, which change a lot of things. Also, a plea for housing assistance; an endorsement of a local house dance; a spur-of-the-moment trip to New York and a spill of bleach in the trunk of a car.

But then there are all the linchpins in other people's lives that brought them into mine, though I wasn't there at the time. Yours I know; many others I don't.

I haven't played Chrononauts in a while. I should fix that.

[herbertinc.livejournal.com]

Going to Swarthmore was also mine. I hate to admit it, but that I went in that direction (one I had been only vaguely considering) probably was decided by a very poor romantic decision on my part. Even more defining is that without that decision my health would probably not have been caught up in Persistent Lyme Complex. Sometimes I wonder if I didn't make that decision where would I be now. I probably wouldn't be Herbert.

A decision to help out with serving ice cream, a chance desire for a game of D&D, asking a boy to clear my tray, a spur of the moment decision to go to PhilCon...

Deciding to talk to lady who complimented my boots in the ladies restroom sparked a conversation that sparked a job offer which made me really start to think about the things are and what I think is wrong with the current economy.

How much of my current life existed before Swarthmore? How much of my life (good and bad) as it is now comes out of a kiss that should not have ever happened?

Love,
Herbert

[macaroniandtuna.livejournal.com]

Interesting idea, and one I've thought about occasionally myself. Of particular note for me, I think, is Nathen, as I told him at like 430am or something as we were driving home from Rothbury last year (because 430am in pitch-darkness on the road is exactly the right time and place for both thinking about and sharing this sort of thought), the ripplepoint being that one summer day he took me to a random impromptu get-together/baseball game thing he'd also invited your mom to. In addition to years' worth of events prior to that, of course, but that one in particular.

That's really the only one I can think of (well, except for one other, again with the not-out-here). I'm sure there are more somewhere. Hmm.

[marcmagus]

I'm still wondering if that Balticon qualifies as a lynchpin. There are certainly plenty of ways a time traveller can flip it: stop you from going, stop me from going (and there are probably a lot of ways to accomplish that), change our schedules at the convention so we don't run into each other (might be tricky). It certainly ripples and affects other things.

What I'm not certain of is whether without Balticon something substantially similar might not have happened sufficiently soon enough that the timeline remains stable. If so, the event is a little different than a Chrononaut lynchpin.

My two biggest lynchpins are December '94 and November '95, with the latter being more or less an opportunity to make up for the former. If I could travel in time and change my own life, that first one is the one I'd be most tempted to flip--and if presented with the opportunity I probably would, even knowing what it would cost me.

Others include September '97, March(?) '00, June '03, Balticon, Feb(?) '05 [?], Aug '06. I'm not sure I'f I'd flip any of them even if I could.

[kdsorceress.livejournal.com]

I'm not immediately sure anything would've happened to keep the timeline stable --without Balticon06, and getting back in touch, you wouldn't have swung by New Years 06, and I wouldn't have seen you again until (potentially) Balticon 07. If not then, Origins 07, when I was all kSatyrfied anyways, and I don't know that I could have as easily pulled the "he's my friend, damn you!" card regarding spending time with you.

Andyeah. *shrugs*

[astaereth.livejournal.com]

Hmm, lynchpins...

I like to think I can trace my entire social and intellectual development (retarded and advanced, respectively) to my eyesight degenerating to the point where I got eyeglasses in first grade. That's a pretty big one. Low self-esteem led to alienation, both the group pushing away from me and me pulling away from the group, which led to loneliness, which lead to reading!

Speaking of which, books are lynchpins too, sometimes. It was starting to read Stephen King when I was... what, 10? When my parents took us on a family vacation to Vegas, and I brought some books along because I was too young to gamble. I think those were the first adult books I ever read, or close to it, and anyway King taught me much of how I look at the world these days.

Then there was Fight Club, the novel, which opened my eyes to entirely new (and seductive) way of writing, which is still incorporated into my own.

The same thing happened with Eraserhead, which was a different kind of movie from anything I'd ever seen. I didn't know if I liked it, and in fact, I've never been able to watch it a second time, but that one time, it was shocking. But it was really joining the film club in high school that led me to let my love of film grow and mature into the full-blown, life-defining passion it is today.

It's funny; as much as I ruminate over my past relationships, I'm not sure any of them really changed the core of me, or even set me on a new path towards something different. Well, except for the one that made me comprehend and accept my sexuality. That's a huge part of my identity. How strange it was, for friendship to shift so suddenly in that new direction...

And then there's Sluggy. Besides introducing me to new friends and new ideas, it was my first step towards a wider world through the internet to culture, politics, religion, and art...

How might my life have been different? Friends lost, connections missed... A childhood more aware of where my life was headed. But then, hindsight is 20/20. And maybe where I am is worth it. It might as well be. It's all I've got.