Curiosity About Alternate Universes

[debka_notion]

I've been wondering sporadically lately, what I'd be like if I hadn't decided to be observant. I remember being at a Shabbos meal at nuqotw's place last year where she asked what we'd be doing if we weren't frum, and I think my answer then was dancing (it was the weekend of a dance camp), and another time was hanging out and talking- i.e. nothing all that different from what I was in fact doing. But really, I wonder who I'd be if I were doing something different with my life. I'm in no hurry to find out- that's for sure, I like the me that I'm creating. But it's an interesting to think about- would I be more daring? more happy? less happy? more comfortable? more tense? Where would I be?

Anyone else wonder those things? (Or the equivalent question for your own situation.)

Comments

[tovah623.livejournal.com]

[shirei-shibolim.livejournal.com]

I haven't thought about that, exactly, but I've taken a different angle. If I had been told at, say, the end of high school that this is what my life would be like in eight years, how would I have reacted? Would I have even believed it?

[debka-notion.livejournal.com]

Somehow that seems like a less provocative question to me. But maybe that has something to do with how I was thinking in high school, or something. I don't know.

What do you think, though?

[shirei-shibolim.livejournal.com]

Less provocative perhaps, but it's something that's within my reach. Gauging the reaction of someone I know (my old self) to a set of known circumstances (my current life) involves much less wild speculation than weaving an alternate history of my life, which has been dictated by as many random incidents as it has general trends.

I doubt I would have believed it, and had I believed, it would have been upsetting and scary. Well, maybe not the bit about being married, but the rest.

[margavriel.livejournal.com]

If I hadn't "frummed out", I would probably be studying in a semikho program at YCT, and living on the UWS, rather than studying at a semikho program at YU (and wondering whether I should arrange to take semikho bechinôs with some rabbi from Breuer's), and living in Washington Heights. I would probably still be davvening at (gasp!) KOE, and only walking up to Breuer's once or twice a year, rather than being an active member of Breuer's, and davvening there several times a week.

And if you had told me that I would one day be where I am now, I would not have believed you. I would have said: "No, you're a chareidi simplificator who doesn't understand where I stand." And maybe I would have been right. :-)

[skyblue-dreamer.livejournal.com]

Definitely, on occasion. On another subject, if I didn't enjoy school so much, I would wonder what my life would be like if I weren't a graduate student (I'd probably have a job!).