"Beyond the edge of the universe {between life and death} is a library that contains an infinite number of books. One tells the story of your life as it is, along with another book for the life you could have lived if you had made a different choice at any point. While we all wonder how our lives might have been, what if you had the chance to go and see for yourself?"
"Every book provides a chance to try another life you could have lived .. Would you have done anything different, if you had the chance to undo your regrets?"
------ Matt Haig, The Midnight Library
On the other hand, Sylvia Plath, another American prolific poet and novelist said:
"I can never be all the people I want and live the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experiences possible in my life."
Sylvia Plath committed suicide at age 30.
First, I must acknowledge the book for its bold if not thought provoking premise along with my apologies to its author, Matt Haig, for co-opting the book's title for this musing. It's not a very long book, 437 pages of large print and its overall dimension is smaller than a standard hard cover, but just slightly larger than a pocket book. I found the theme and the premise as far too deep, if not entirely fanciful, so I'd say it is not an easy "read".
But, the reader (of this blog or the book) will have to agree that the idea behind the premise is much too intriguing to be ignored or not pondered upon. To get one to wonder or imagine "what if" is not entirely radical but it does indeed take anyone to the realm of wishful thinking. But, keep in mind, we are talking about "what if". However, isn't the "do over" our most intimate wish toward a perfect life?
Before we get too deeply, let us take a byway to warm up our thoughts about why The Midnight Library can be a reasonable place for those seeking hope in the event that there is time, hopefully much of it still left, for the proverbial course correction for each individual life.
The perfect example would be the game of chess. You don't have to know the game to get the gist of the analogy. According to Claude Shannon, American mathematician, there are 10120 possible permutations for a typical game of chess (that's 10X10 .. 120 times over). That designation is now known as the Shannon number but never mind that it would include everything from the silliest to the sublime on how a game may evolve and end. If we count only the games by serious players, the number could be just third of that; still a very large number. Another mind blowing conclusion is that the Shannon number is more than all the atoms in the entire universe. But bear with me because soon you'll see where this is going.
When I was in college - way, way back when - I played a lot of amateur chess among friends and classmates. I poured over a few chess books, got to be conversant with chess openings and the history of the game (now almost completely beyond recollection). Often the games were for fun but just as often they turned into both emotionally and physically draining jousts with folks who were otherwise good friends until you got them at the opposite side of a chess board.
I have not played another game with a person in a long time but still do frequently enough against a computer. The beauty of computer chess is that one gets to choose the level of the game, akin to picking your opponent. In other words one may play against a novice, or one of average skill, or go against a grand master. And the computer is so gallantly generous as to allow one to have a do-over or even offer to help with a better move (against itself!) How cool is that?
But, every now and then, feeling less chivalrous or seeking solace from beneath the thin layer of sportsmanship, I would invoke the chess move "do-over", once or twice or, well, as many as a few times, to salvage what was a great game on my part until that one fatal mistake. So, I would resort to a do-over. The computer, more than its compliant air of indifference, does not really care. Now, as a result, I do once in a while play the perfect game. A computer voice obligingly either offer to resign or admit, "checkmate".
Aside from the ego boost, one realizes that, indeed, in chess as in life, there is nothing like a do-over to achieve the perfect outcome. And how we wish it is possible or at the very least, a chance at something better than the prevailing predicament.
In chess one may elect the easier level; as in life, one may choose the easy circumstances with very little challenges. However, life, unlike in chess, do-over is hardly an option. Though sometimes possible, the required commitment may be daunting to those eager to try and find it often more challenging to "stick with it". Alcoholics, drug addicts and criminal recidivists provide perennial proof.
In a coastal area of an island somewhere in the Pacific lived a family of four. The husband is a fisherman. He has a small outrigger dugout canoe that he takes out before dawn, if the weather is good, to fish. He is back two hours after sunrise, sometimes with a bounty, sometimes with very little. He will either be at the open marketplace at the center of the village to sell fish, or he is at home with enough of what little he caught to feed his family for that day.
The wife takes care of a five year old girl and a three year old boy and the one room nipa hut that sits on bamboo stilts. Below, visible through the bamboo flooring are the handful of chickens and couple of ducks fenced in by a simple enclosure. Their bathroom and toilet are a one unit affair five yards away by where banana and papaya and guava trees stand as part of a privacy wall from the rest of the small fishing community. From the other corner of the small lot is a pig pen with a couple of piglets. She takes care of those two and the ducks and the chicken. In seven months the two pigs will be sold. Aside from the money spent to buy two more piglets, the proceeds from the sale she would save for the kids. There are eggs to sell or eat depending on her husband's luck with the sea or the weather.
This is a happy family. There are no debts. There is little to pay for maintaining the house, their lifestyle does not cost much. The family is relatively healthy from the food they eat and the salty fresh air they breathe. What little "needs" they have are cheaply covered. What little "wants" they have are either cheaply addressed or ignored. A simple but happy life.
Unbeknownst to the wife and the husband and the entire world, twelve thousand miles away from the opposite side of the globe eight years ago was another story.
Above the din and bustle of mid-town Manhattan, New York city, on the 21st floor of a plush tower-apartment, sat Natalie, alone, at the breakfast nook that is a mere section of a 3500 sq. foot luxuriously appointed living space all to herself. Also, all to herself was a bottle of red wine, half of its $79 content she had already consumed. Again, all to herself was a bottle of prescription pills. She had already taken six of them.
Natalie just came back from a well earned vacation in the Far East, to escape the brutal winter that hit New York in a long time. It was also to escape just temporarily the hectic life as a senior VP for one of the most powerful financial institutions of Wall Street. It was the break she needed but by the time the "fasten-your-seat-belt" sign turned off, the reality of a fast paced life woke her up from her last vacation reverie. JFK International Airport was still blanketed with snow. Her phone lit up with texts and several messages. She had a summon from the Board to come to the office bright and early at seven the following Monday morning. The late night TV business broadcast the last two hours of prime time about the potential financial crisis presumably to hit in the morning.
Natalie had a good life. Wharton Business School, sixteen job offers before graduation. The years went by quickly. Way too fast, really. She was brilliant and motivated. She was 39 years old, unmarried, and a senior VP. She ate nothing but catered lunch almost every day. She gets picked up and whisked around to wherever and back by limo with more than one dedicated driver at her beck and call every day, including weekends. She had a fitness trainer and dietician, all part of her negotiated salary package.
All that came with a price. No long term personal relationship to speak of, professional alliances were only as good as the trade winds of the business cycle. She had very few close friends and people in social gatherings suddenly would tone down their conversations to a murmur partly to gape at her good looks, expensive attire and in awe of her status, or to be filled with envy every time she entered the room.
She was refilling her glass to the brim, finishing off the bottle, while the pills were by then consumed to the last remaining handful of capsules left. As she tipped the glass for the last gulp she was thinking of the woman hawking fresh fruit to the tourists from her dugout canoe next to the water's edge of Natalie's hotel as Natalie was having breakfast with someone she just met five days ago.
An hour later after the last drop of wine, after eight more pills, Natalie was perusing the books at The Midnight Library.
It is now eight years since then. Natalie is now Natividad but she has no knowledge of everything in that New York apartment, nor about anything before then. She is at the present moment mending a torn shirt of her boy and if she has time before tending to the chicken and the ducks and the piglets, she will also patch her husband's well worn trouser.
Natividad might herself one day get to visit the Midnight Library. However, there is a strong possibility she may not find it necessary.
(P.S. - I made the story up and therefore not based on actual people I know or read about. However, my family, as I was growing up in one of the central islands of the Philippines, lived as humbly as that of Natividad's. It is the best way I know how to illustrate the essence of the fanciful "what ifs" and "what could have been" in the imaginary world that is The Midnight Library).
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