Who would have thought that lyrics of such a simplicity could describe an experience that one cannot picture if one has never lived to see it? Could anyone believe that in a single moment one sees the own future, completely different from what one always imagined?
I am talking about James Blunt’s song “You’re beautiful”. For those of you who don’t know the song, it’s about a man who encounters the woman of his dreams in a subway, but is unable to do anything, as she is with another man. So, they just share a single yet everlasting moment of eye contact and go on with their respective lifes.
So why am I writing about this? It’s only another stupid and totally absurd pop song, isn’t it? Well, I at least have always thought that it’s simply a nice idea, but that it was completely unrealistic – until a few days ago. No, I wasn’t on a subway – alas there is no such thing in Luxembourg – I was in a mall. It was perhaps one of the most preternatural experiences in my life. The moment I saw this girl, I could picture my future in every detail, be it ever so insignificant, literally everything suddenly made sense. It lasted only for these few seconds we were in the revolving door, but during these few moments I felt as if there was a whole different life waiting for me somewhere.
“(…) anything that can happen, will happen.” – Alan Guth
The parallel universes are said to be non-fungible (meaning there’s no way of communicating with any of these parallel universes), but maybe this experience was my unique chance to get a glimpse at what my life could be like if things would have gone slightly (or totally?) different. Perhaps I will have forgotten this imaginative future and this girl in a week or two – and this fear is also a reason why I blog about it – but it was an experience catchy enough that it might have a deep influence on how I perceive my life.
This encounter might not have happened to show me what life could be completely different if things in the past had gone differently, but to show me that the possibilities are endless. My life shall not be governed by the past, even still from this moment onwards, every decision I make may change my life – if any decision will be the right one might remain unknown to me forever, or, with much luck, I will see the day when I can look back and everything will make so much sense as it made during those seconds of the encounter.