Alt-self

We will never know how and when our story ends. Nor do we wish to know. Dust we must. It’s a blessing in disguise to live with unknowns, one of which, so obvious to others, but not to us: we can’t even see ourselves. Only its reflection (or self-projection).

The best we can is to invent one and believe in it, almost an exercise in self-hypnosis (repetition). Might as well go for a fabulous Alt-self, not a “s***hole” one.

Using Sharpie, we wand and wish unpleasantness away: the weather, the stocks and the tri-demic charts.

Most viable alt-self for alt-reality.

This person comments this, that person says that – on mostly inflated and edited accomplishment.

Before internet, we cared about what our neighbours say. Now, miles away, ocean apart yet a new neighbourhood exists (Marshall McLuhan’s Global Village, except it’s two-way: up and download, narrow cast, not broadcast). Mr. Rogers, a native of PA, will need his own alt-self as an Internationalist: part Chinese, part Muslim and part A.I. constructed. While it’s hard for us human to stay relevant, it’s easy with A.I.

We both benefit and drained out from online world (without fb’s thanks). World-wide adult-sitting site.

The plus side? We can sprinkle our loneliness in both worlds e.g., sitting in a parked car eyes glued to the phone, as in transcendental meditation.

I did that every morning. My daily mental gymnastics. My fear of missing out. Who is the new PM of Britain? Who is in charge of Haiti? and Why was that China’s number 2 was removed physically from the set?

Meanwhile, what happened to me? I inherited my parents’ genes. By default and design, I am their replacement. A hybrid of justice and mercy. Then I too will be gone. Leaving behind my biological imprints. My daughters then take up after me: hip hop and rock and their turn to wonder “Is this it?”. They just want to survive road rage, mass shootings and to finish a door-dash shift, unharmed. All I can provide are Sharpies, to sketch their Alt-life, like many before me who sent off a proverbial small-town girl on a bus to NYC. Big Apple big dream.

Life is beautiful. I was told, so I am telling them. What war, famine, pandemic and man-inhuman-to-man?.

It’s all rosy. Just wait! @Next mile-marker. Next milestone. See, it’s coming (the old master showed the diamond on his returning student’s crown – a Nobel-prize winner in contemporary society – who thanks him for all those years of instruction, and asked where the diamond was – for the umpteenth time, he was told he would find it at the bottom of the ink vase “keep burning the midnight oil”).

Not the destination but the journey that is the reward. Who to believe? Results or process? The middle class who get squeezed no longer believe in classic theories e.g. trickle down or revolution.

No more La Dolce Vita. Rome is burning. Rome is back. This time, a strongman ( strongwoman) State.

No more subsidising for “s***hole” countries. Best defence is offence. Of course, build the wall, install the cameras and unleash the dogs.

Meanwhile, with pre-conditions and pre-existing DNAs, we are nodes to transmit genetic codes. Do not forget our biological mission, while self-reinventing: modern man for modern age.

I know an Alt-self is an exercise in futility. I’d rather face my limitations, let’s say at a reunion with my younger self. A form of self-audit (as opposed to “meet w/ Jesus).

Seek not thy Alt-self, but in all your ways be of optimally calibrated. The world needs exactly it. As evolved species, we invented a caste system, a social construct, to condition mass-society for consumer products (pre-digital era) – to be status seekers. Now, with social media, it’s viral-ization.

Like a double agent whose presentation of the self in everyday life is twice demanding, we too face competition as self-advertisement faces diminishing attention span.

The Alt-self construct is for us to buy time. Like a sharpie that redraws life path on an imaginary easel. Before long narcissists can no longer recognize their true selves even when face to face with it: “the first time, I ever saw my face”; not a reflection nor self-projection. But see as been seen. When the unknown becomes known.