It's amazing, sometimes, how delicate possibilities are. Just very small changes, one small thing not happening, could completely alter the course of someone's life. If the path of life is, indeed, a path, to stick with a familiar clichéd metaphor, then it is a path with thousands upon thousands of possible routes and offshoots, all with the signposts that are old worn and written in another language, always leading off in a distant direction obscured by some vague landmark that gives you a ambiguous idea of your destination, but you don't even know if that is the path that will lead you there, because there are innumerable ones that seem to go in that direction. You have to base your chosen direction only on what you've already experienced and what others have told you, and by the time you've experienced enough to make wise decisions you'll be too far along the road to make any of the turns worthwhile.
Oh and your blindfolded, dizzy, and your shoelaces are tied together. And a bunch of people are going to make decisions for you that you can't change or affect. Have a blast.
So let's begin then. Roll a die to pick the initial path. You don't have a die with you? Well I hardly see how that's my problem. I'll let you go ransack a board game or something. It's okay, I'll wait...
There, now roll it... Okay, what did you get? Was it four? Well, it doesn't matter because we're not going to use a dice, that's stupid. Why would you base your future on a die roll? Moving on to option A.
A:
Steven is born in a suburb outside a big city. He is an only child to a stable family relationship. He does average in school, eventually choosing to go to a college in the city nearby, where he can keep in touch with his family. After college, Steven moves on to a mundane desk job, where he assists a bunch of people he never met working a similarly mundane desk job sell some similarly mundane objects. Here he meets his wife, Susan, with whom he moves to the suburbs outside the city where they have one child and a stable family relationship.
2:
Steven is born in a suburb outside a big city. He is an only child to a stable family relationship. He does average in school, eventually choosing to go to a college on the opposite side of the country of his home town. Here he is exposed to ideas and experiences he hadn't even thought of at home. After college he joins the Peace Corps., and leaves for several years to help a country worse off than his own with problems unheard of in his country of origin. Here he meets his wife, Susan, whom he marries upon their return to their home country. He settles down in the suburb outside a different big city from his home town, and though his neighbors are often annoyed by how much he talks about his time in the Peace Corps, the gas mileage he gets on his hybrid car, or the fact that they should put solar panels on their roofs, he lives happily and has one child and a stable family relationship.
C:
Steven is born in a suburb outside a big city. He is the first of two children to a stable family relationship. He does well in school, eventually going to a college in the city nearby. Unfortunately, his younger brother Robert doesn't do as well, and falls in with an unfortunate crowd. After college, Steven moves on to a mundane desk job, while his brother continues his relationship with aforementioned unfortunate crowd. While Steven is busy trying to get Susan to laugh while idly drinking coffee, Roger is arrested for a crime of your choice. Roger spends the rest of his life in and out of jail. This puts emotional strain on his mother, who Steven and Susan have to take in. Though this puts a strain on their marriage, they persevere.
C2:
Or, maybe they don't persevere. Susan decides she has had enough and chooses to leave the marriage along with Steven's son, Michael. Steven takes care of his mother for several months before she passes away. He attempts to begin dating again but never finds any successful relationships. He manages to maintain a strained but happy relationship with his son. Steven occupies himself with work and a few hobbies. He eventually sees his son move to a suburb outside a big city and start a family. Though he is not happy with his life, he perseveres, taking solace in the fact that his wife has been as unhappy as him since the divorce.
IV:
Steven is born in a suburb outside a big city. He is the second of two children to a stable family relationship. His brother, Roger does average in school, eventually choosing to go to a college in the big city nearby. Steven, however falls in with an unfortunate crowd. After being in a group of people making a collectively poor decision, Steven is arrested. His arrest suitably terrifies him (he is rather easily intimidated) and he resolves to join the police force. He goes through training, and begins working in the big city. He marries an office worker named Susan, who he meets by chance on a walk. However, Steven experiences many unpleasant things as a result of his work leading to a strained and distant relationship with his Susan, who stays with him through it all.
&:
Steven is born in a suburb outside a big city. He is an only child to a stable family relationship. He does average in school, eventually choosing to go to a college in the city nearby, where he can keep in touch with his family. Here in college he meets a woman that would eventually become his wife, who is named Susan (but it's a different from the Susan before. Coincidence is funny like that). Following college he begins a mundane desk job doing mundane things, etc. His marriage to Susan 2.0 becomes strained however, and Steven is single again by his thirties. He occupies himself with work however he eventually begins to loathe the company he works for. Continue as in the movie Office Space. Or any movie that begins with an discontented office worker really. I'd suggest Fight Club.
∞:
Steven is born in a suburb outside a big city. On one night while he was a teenager he has a a peculiar dream where he meets himself 6 times. Each time is both subtlety and obviously different. He can't stand any of them, and finds all of them to be insufferably boring or annoying. He then goes to a college somewhere in the middle of the country, where he hopes to meet his future wife and settle down in some small town nowhere near a big city.
Doesn't exactly match up with that monologue at the beginning does it? Funny, how these kinds of things just happen like that. It's like there's no choice at all.
