First off, what is the multiverse? The multiverse is the idea that outside of our own universe there exist an infinite number of alternate and parallel universes. Each of these universes are a branch from our own, one different choice, a left turn instead of right, and an entire new reality has been created. So outside of our universe are an infinite number of universes all based on the myriad of choices YOU made today.
There’s some appeal to this.
You might’ve noticed recently we are being inundated with multiverse stories: Marvel’s multiverse saga of stories (Loki, Spiderman No Way Home, Doctor Strange Multiverse of Madness; you get what I mean) and Everything Everywhere All at Once. As well as some notable fiction of the last few years: The Midnight Library by Matt Haigh, Dark Matter by Blake Crouch (as well as Recursion), I’m sure you can think of more, that ain’t my job! The fact is this genre seems to be exploding, however it is far from new.
The Best of All Possible Worlds
Ask anyone who’s been alive for more than a few years: Is this the best of all possible worlds? Even the greatest skeptic would scoff and proclaim with haughty indignation, “Hell no!”
I am 31 years old. Hardly an age where someone should already be exhausted from the constant deluge of “unprecedented” and “historic” phenomena, and yet here I am. You want to ask me if this is the best of all possible worlds? If this is best possible world, I pity all the others.
It doesn’t take too much brainpower to imagine a world where Covid never happened. The cascading ripple effect of the virus has touched every life all over the world, from schools to businesses, families, and relationships; no one came out of that unscathed.
We all watched Tiger King.
The Russia-Ukraine War, January 6 insurrection, cataclysmic climate change, another recession, record inflation, yadda, yadda, yadda.
I want to imagine all the alternatives! What if Hillary won instead? What if Gore had won? What if 9/11 never happened? There are countless scenarios, a million choices that could’ve been made just a little bit differently.
The best of all possible worlds? Not if I got something to say about it!
Zoom In - In Which I Make This About Myself
Life is hard.
I’m the dumbass who went to art school. I took out loans, like a lot of them. I majored in writing, something that I have literally never made any money doing until I started this substack.
I think all the time, what if I didn’t go to Columbia College Chicago?
I wasn’t a good student in high school, I only got into one other school, Southern Illinois University. I would’ve gone for English, maybe journalism. How would my life have been different? I’d owe a hell of a lot less in loans for one.
Would I have ended up in the same predicaments? The same career? Would I have more freedom with less debt?
Every time I become stuck in my head, I fall back on these possibilities, all the what-ifs. If I hadn’t quit cross country junior year of high school, would I still be fat today? Would I have still injured my knees? If I had gone to SIU instead of Columbia would I still have felt lonely and isolated? Or would I have just sheltered more in drinking to numb that feeling?
To believe that this is the best of all possible worlds, is to believe that everything that happened happened for a reason, that it was all predetermined. It makes you feel small, listless. What’s the point of doing anything if I am always going to be just this?
To believe in the multiverse, to daydream alternate realities, is to exist in a world of illusory grandeur, to believe that we have control over the outcomes of our life. Both views have an equal probability, so it becomes about preference: would you rather feel powerless or in control?
Regret vs. Hindsight
I wrote a story last year along this train of thought, mapping the millions of possible worlds I could be inhabiting, based on all the choices I have made in my life. I wrote it kind’ve as a love letter to my wife.
In it I went through some key choices in my life, the directions I could’ve gone, the directions I ended up on. The gist of it: I have a lot of regrets, but each of these regrets taught me something, and each of these regrets have led me to become who I am now. Namely: My mistakes led me to her, and my daughter. (Cheesy, I know.)
But the big choice: Going to SIU instead of Columbia, would’ve changed everything about who I am. I might’ve even *shudder* joined a frat. Going to Columbia, for all of its faults and costs, taught me independence. I became comfortable in solitude. I did learn how to write, and some people even think I do it pretty well. I learned how to be true to who I am, and to not dull myself for others, some pretty nifty traits, I’d say.
So many of the things I have painted as regrets through my life, are things that have led me barreling to become who I am, for better or worse.
That’s not to say that there aren’t possibly better worlds; God, I hope there are. But the idea of an elusive, perfect world is foolish. There will always be things that you’ll look back on and wish you’d done differently, you’ll map out the different branches your life could’ve taken. I could’ve won that billion dollar lottery and daydream about the “good ol’ days” when I struggled to pay the bills, because at least then I valued the little I had.
We’re human. We’re always going to find something to complain about.
So Why Are We Obsessed?
Ok, back to the task at hand. Why are we obsessed with multiverses?
It’s because we’re human! It’s because we want things to be perfect, or better, or even just something other than THIS. We want other parallel universes to exist because at least then we can imagine a world where everything has turned out just fine. We can look down at our tired hands and empty wallets and daydream about a world where we are carried along on pillows like clouds, without a care in the world.
As long as we are uncomfortable we will dream of something better. And we will always find something that makes us uncomfortable. Our obsession with multiverses and alternate realities is probably the most human act of curiosity ever created.
And right now, in this world, we confront the Candide question - Is this the best of all possible worlds? And we hope — sincerely, it is a desperate, grasping hope — that it is not. Because if this is the best there is, what’s the point?
You see, it’s easy to feel hopeless.
But there’s another way to look at this. Yes, this might be the only reality there is, it might not be, but this is the only reality that we are alive in, right now. Regrets are regrets. They are immovable monuments to the past. But each regret brings us to where we are. As much as I’d like to live in a perfect world where those regrets don’t exist, I can’t. All I can do, and all any of us can do, is whatever we can to make this world the best possible one we can hope to make. There might be better out there somewhere, but until then, we can put the work into this fixer upper, and maybe come close to the imagined worlds we dream of.
"All events are linked together in the best of all possible worlds. for after all, if you had not been expelled from a fine castle with great kicks in the backside for love of Mademoiselle Cunégonde, if you had not been subjected to the Inquisition, if you had not traveled about America on foot, if you had not given the Baron a great blow with your sword, if you had not lost all your sheep from the good country of Eldorado, you would not be here eating candied citrons and pistachios."
"That is well said," replied Candide, "but we must cultivate our garden.”
- Voltaire, Candide