Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Spiritual Doppelgangers

Do you ever see people and realize that they're having your life, but an alternate version? This happens to me most frequently when it's someone I envy--I just find myself thinking, "Wait, that should be me!"--indignantly. They usually share some attribute with me (more often than not it's both hair color and vivacity), and then they have also got things that I have not got, that I then fixate on. One girl I know is cheerful, smiley, has a head full of brown ringlets, loves Victorian novels, and now she's engaged to a boy she fell in love with in a classroom as they argued over books. Wait, that should be me! Once upon a time, it was Amanda, the ballerina fairy who found the right things exciting and happy, and got Tristan in the deal. Wait, that should be me! It's not that I'm unhappy with my life. It's just that sometimes I get these flashes of alternative lives, some better, some worse.

Amanda and I, luckily, became good friends. Maybe it had to do with the discovery of realism, or the reality of, the alternate life. But more likely than not, I've found, these spiritual doppelgangers and I don't actually get along, despite my best efforts.

Sometimes, when I imagine my subjective universe (that is, God has built the world as my personal boot camp)(and he's built your world as your personal boot camp--don't worry, I'm not that self-centered), I wonder what I'm supposed to learn from seeing these people and knowing them to be my alter egos. Perhaps I'm supposed to see that their lives may not be that great after all, and that I'm lucky to have what I do. Maybe I'm just supposed to learn to keep my envy under control and learn humility. Or maybe I'm supposed to just be aware that I'm being tested. Or maybe that it really, despite everything my mind tells me, is not all about me.

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