I used to play this weird game as a child. I’d close my eyes and pretend to forget everything I ever knew about myself, where I was, and even why I was. This was undoubtedly inspired by my parents watching ‘Quantum Leap’, a 90s Sci-Fi series wherein the main protagonist, Sam Beckett, found himself trapped in a sort of recursive time-traveling experiment, leaping into the body of a different person each week.
Every time Sam found himself in a new body, he’d immediately be tasked with having to piece together who he was in this timeline, and what was expected of him. Long story short, this was incredibly compelling to my developing six-year-old consciousness and really kind of shaped its development.
I played this game for years, usually for a few minutes each day, finding interesting new ways to reconcile my existence and being forced to assimilate with each new version of myself. I’m now 38, and I still play the game. Almost every minute of every day, I subconsciously ask myself the same questions I asked when I was six. Where am I? Who am I? Why am I?
And every day, I answer those questions by making incremental improvements with myself, positioning myself to better answer those questions tomorrow. Eventually, I’ll have to answer to my six-year-old self. He’s probably going to be pretty incredulous, as six-year-olds usually are. I want to protect him, so I’ll have to choose my words carefully. I’ll tell him this: you are the answer to your own questions, but for them to ever make sense, you’ll just have to keep asking them.