180 - Exploring the multiverse 🪞
Hey there, !
A poem I liked this week, by Rumi:
Come to the orchard in spring.
There is light and wine and sweethearts
in the pomengranate flowers
If you do not come, these do not matter.
If you do come, these do not matter.
Random, I know, but I’m getting into poetry somehow!
Anyway…
This short piece was written off the back of the massive win by Everything Everywhere All At Once - a fantastic movie we love - that won Best Picture, Best Director, Best Editing, Best Original Screenplay, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress at the latest Oscars!
If you haven’t watched it, it’s a weird and wonderful film about the multiverse, combining genres like ingredients in a blender, adding a core of a mother-daughter relationship story and then layering on some kick-ass action as well as absurdist humour.
I revisited the movie recently, and thought about what kind of decisions would have pushed me on to different paths and different worlds. This is just a set of classic ‘what if’ scenarios, but I’m doing it for my own life, and maybe thinking about where that would have taken me to now.
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AMEB: doing Speech and Drama - like, yeah, I did violin when I was younger, but I also remember doing this as an extra-curricular, where you just perform poems and talk about an object for like 10 mins in the exam. Super easy stuff, really. But I do wonder if I didn’t do Speech and Drama whether I’d be as…er…gregarious? Talkative? I would probably never have acted in plays, or musicals, and I definitely would never have been an MC. In this future I reckon I would have become a librarian that obsesses over books, and then gets real into crypto when it first came up…set up an ICO at it’s peak, rug-pull the investors, and then be charged for tax fraud for not declaring my financial interests. Who knows, it might have happened!!
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School: moving to Melbourne High - one of the biggest impacts on my later life is probably the one to move from Melbourne Grammar to Melbourne High. I have no basis to believe this, other than that the multiverse is infinite, but I’m pretty sure if I stayed, I would have ended up in IB or as a real estate agent. Maybe I would be selling some sick mansions in Toorak (less preferable) and/or being the one who buys those mansions (more preferable) and/or have married into a super rich family through private school connections (super preferable). Is that how it works? No idea :D
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Uni: choosing Eng/Law - another big deal that I took a LOT of decision-making to get to. The alternative was Comm/Law (though I also think it would be fascinating to know what would have happened if I went to be a doctor), which I think would have led me down pretty much the same path as I am today. Maybe a little less fun hobbies on the side? I doubt I would have leaned as heavily into the nerdy side of my life and instead may have traded 3d printers, DnD and boardgames for golf, watches and general being-Patrick-Bateman vibes.
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Newsletter: starting one - honestly, I’d just have a lot more time to doom-scroll on reddit. I probably would have written something completely different…like self-published a book on Amazon or something? Not that I can’t still do that, but maybe I’m already an amateur published author in another world. I’d have more time to do literally anything else too…which means I’d probably waste it :D
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Meeting you, - If I never met you, I wouldn’t be who I am today :)
What do you think your biggest decision would have been?
Chat soon :)
Let me know if you have any feedback for the newsletter!
✔️Real Life Recommendations
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Golden Lily - year-old Chinese yumcha place just dropped - absolutely fantastic, and pretty well priced in Box Hill! I knew the Chen had opened in Box Hill, and I’ve been to the great brunch place Zero Mode downstairs, but didn’t know there was a Chinese restaurant in the building. I loved this place for the just really well-made classic dishes they had; the whitebait in particular was delishhh. Highly recommended.
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Bird of Paradise - such a BEAUTIFUL plant (gifted by the lovely Kerny) that is currently sitting in my front area when people come in because it just fits and I love it. Get one! They’re fantastic and seem like they will live without too much worries…will report back on survival.
🚌 Adventures on the Information Super-Highway
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Habitat Chronicles: You can’t tell people anything - humbling for a tutor, but important for interpersonal communication. I think it’s a useful way to think about why people seem to be stupid, but aren’t. It’s just that learning new things and translating my brain to your brain is difficult and takes time! It’s much easier to both look at something outside of our brains to make it real.
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Visual Wordle Solver - it’s been made! I mean, with a good UI at least. Fascinating to watch it work, and that people are still into it :) Are you still playing?
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Cine2Nerdle - new obsession though I’m not doing it daily yet - a 4x4 grid that’s hiding 5 different movies in it. This one is a good test of cinematic memory and also isn’t SUPER hard to do (you can definitely guess your way to the answer).