who would you be

Who would you be if you could be anyone (alive or dead, rich or poor, real or imaginary, fictitious or fleshly, good or evil, terrestrial or extra-terrestrial)?

Jesus Christ? Boudica? Barack Obama? Osama bin Laden? Bart Simpson? Cleopatra? Chewbacca? Astarte? Eve, mother of humankind? The Planet Neptune? Venus? God? Beelzebub? Diana Princess Of Wales?

Let X stand for where, what and who you are right now as you read these words.

Think about how you got to X: the paths you took, the choices you made. Imagine you could restore your life to a previous moment, restore to an earlier save, as with a computer game, or even restart your life over from its beginning.

If you could plot any plot across 31-dimensional spacetime toward the present moment, what plot would you plot?

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck?

If you could choose and plot and walk any path or route at your whimly convenience and as prompted by random nihilistic impulse -- what path would you walk?

What values would you plug into which variables if you could collapse the wave function of your destiny-cloud at will, and according to selfish specifications? (BTW, you already can and do.)

The Question is: Would you choose to be you, in the life you're in right now, at X, while you're asking your self this question?

Or more sharply: Do you choose to be you?

Now ask yourself who's asking -- who wants to know, and why?

Then ask yourself Hillel's three questions: "If I am not for myself, who is? And if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?"

Now go to the nearest bathroom. Look into the nearest mirror and ask who is asking this question. Then turn around and look at yourself: imagine you are the "you" in the mirror looking out on the world outside the mirror. Ask yourself "where am 'I' when I ask this question?".

Then answer by saying "tat, tvam asi". Then punch yourself in the head until you knock yourself out.

But before you do, imagine you are the whole universe, alive and well and smart as smart can be. And imagine that you are eavesdropping on the thoughts of a creature that's wondering why it is that the whole universe seems purpose-built to facilitate the asking of that question by that creature, whatever / however / whenever / wherever that creature happens to be. The anthropic principle, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health.

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eBooks by Cosmic Rapture:

NIGHTMERRIES: THE LIGHTER SIDE OF DARKNESS This so-called "book" will chew you up, spit you out, and leave you twitching and frothing on the carpet. More than 60 dark and feculent fictions (read ‘em and weep) copiously illustrated by over 20 grotesque images you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley.

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FIENDS & FREAKS Adults-only Tales of Serpents, Dragons, Devils, Lobsters, Anguished Spirits, Gods, Anti-gods and Other Horse-thieves You Wouldn't Want to Meet in a Dark Kosmos: 4th Edition

HAGS TO HAGGIS Whiskey-soaked Tails of War-nags, Witches, Manticores and Escapegoats, Debottlenecking and Desilofication, Illustrated