What If?

We all worry about our destiny.

In this respect, we are all born blind, but as we age we realise that the curse of knowing what comes next in our lives is a curse we have been very lucky to have avoided.  Imagine the horror of constantly knowing the precise date, time and cause of your death and carrying that with you as it got closer and closer and then actually happened.  That’s some curse.

Even if we get to an age of reasoning and self-awareness and are able to sit down and write a master-plan for our life, or try to adhere to our parents’ master-plan for our life, nothing truly goes to plan.  Even a plan to become the ruler of the world gets thwarted when we are run over by a bus.

At the very least our lack of knowing what’s to happen next leaves us a little paranoid.  And very anxious.  We mainly want to ‘know’, but we don’t ‘know’.

Interplaying with our not knowing is our constant and unquenchable ‘What If?’ nag. It’s there all the time things are happening that weren’t part of our plan. In other words, it’s always there.

What if that person hates me?

What if that person loves me?

What if I act on impulse?

What if I don’t?

What if I go left?

What if I go right?

What if I stay where I am?

The ‘What If?’ nag is never silent for long.

I was reminded of this when recently reading the exquisite words of somebody who entered a ‘What If?’ moment even though he probably didn’t realise it.

He was enjoying walking in the middle of nowhere.  This is something he does, and he is to be applauded for it. Apart from the physical health aspect, for the tired mind it is an activity as refreshing as a long deep sleep.

He was in the middle of nowhere, a place where no living soul would share the nowhereness because there’s nowhere to go and no good reason, other than his reason, for being nowhere.  The solitude is a refreshing massage for the lone inner soul that is nowhere.

Except, on this particular day, he was not alone.

His huge infinite head space was not just his.  He awoke from his strolling contentment to realise that somebody was walking towards him.

They drew near and passed like ships at sea, but with the exchange of contented smiles, nods and minimum greetings, as they both swiftly continued their solitary missions once neither was blighting the other’s view of nothing.  Both were separately yet collectively enjoying what they were doing and it defined them.  Their lives, their paths, with all the baggage and complexities that they bring, were never to cross again.

This simple lack of anything happening played on his mind, interrupting his private mission.  And, yes, a haze of a million ‘What If’s plagued him later that day like the faint scratching of an unseen rodent under the floorboards.

What if he’d stopped to engage her in in conversation?  

What if they’d walked together for a while?

What if they’d verbally shared their love of that restful regeneration that comes from walking nowhere?

What if they’d found a connection to each other’s souls that was deeper than a smile?

What if they’d fallen in love and walked happily ever after?

What if doing anything other than what they did had completely spoilt everything?

What if what the did was the right thing?

What if stopping had destroyed the mood forever?

What if he would have lived to regret not stopping?

What if he would have lived to regret stopping?

I understand the ‘What If’ nag.  I have considered many aspects of my own life and wondered ‘What If’.  At times the ‘What If’ nag has made me reserved and held me back from ‘taking a chance’ or ‘having a go’.  Equally I can ponder ‘What If’s about things I actually did do and chances I did take, and fear how badly different my life might be if I hadn’t done those things.

Yes, I understand the ‘What If’ nag.

So, back to the gentleman who inspired this article, a gentle man with an observational power that somehow converts perfectly to make him a great orator, a wordsmith able to carve vivid pictures with his sentences born of his ‘What If’ nag.  He’s over there, pondering his infinite catalogue of ‘What If’s.

But, what if he didn’t ponder?