Sci-fi, Spirituality, and Self

Hello friend

Have you ever heard of ‘the road not taken’?

Originally credited to Robert Frost’s poem by the same name, the quote goes like this,

“Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”

The usual interpretation of the quote is related to carving out your own path rather than following the herd and staying true to yourself.

The common understanding is you live with the choice you make at any given point in time.

But what if you could experience the reality that is a consequence of a different choice?

What if there were more than one choice you could have made and each choice led to a different reality?

Would you even want to know what could happen if you had chosen differently?

Or would you be happy and satisfied with the choice you have already made?

Of course, these questions are hypothetical in nature. The common thread is that they all are triggered by the latest sci-fi book I read over the last weekend.

Book of the Week- Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

Dark Matter book by Blake Crouch

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This book weaves the theoretical concepts of parallel realities, multiverses, and quantum mechanics (Many World’s interpretation of Quantum Mechanics) together to present an extremely engaging sci-fi, romantic fiction thriller. I could not keep it down for even a minute and it made me imagine things that I never thought I could imagine!

​Check Out Its Goodreads Page Here​

Once I read it, I was left with the questions I mentioned above and the more I tried to answer them, the more my head hurt.

It felt like the real multiverse of madness! 😀 To be fair, it was probably also because it was 4 am in the morning after 7 hours of non-stop reading. 😀

I am not sure if I would want to know what would have happened if I and people related to me had made different choices.

There could be a version of me who studied MBA instead of liberal arts and now has a full-time corporate job and is happy minting money every second.

There could be a version of me who is married happily with a kid because his first childhood crush had said yes when he confessed his feelings to her 9 years back.

There could be a version of me who never discovered writing and is now depressed in a dead-end, sales job.

And all these versions exist simultaneously, here and now.

Is this what they refer to as the “illusion of reality” in various spiritual traditions or “Maya” in the Vedic texts?

Like the protagonist in the book realizes at a critical juncture,

“Everything that can happen will happen. Everything.“

The point is even if all these versions exist, what does it mean for me here and now?

How does it impact my identity and how I think about the self in this particular universe?

Isn’t it a relief to know that there are probably infinite versions of me who are living the consequences of different choices?

Is spirituality ultimately about the experience of this multi-dimensional self and realizing the oneness that permeates across all different versions of reality?

Maybe it is not regret I should feel but gratefulness that I am not missing out on anything?

God I absolutely love when a book makes you think of existential stuff in an exciting way with the spice of sci-fi!!

Have you ever read a book like this?

Hit me with some good recommendations! 🙂

Until next time
Love
Vishal