Life As A Scatterplot

I had jokingly referenced the “Mandela Effect” to a friend who had never heard of it. After I had briefly explained the basic idea behind the theory, my thoughts later drifted beyond the silly notions of alternate universes and began reassessing the whole visual concept of what we refer to as "Life." We often imagine Life as a straight line, as we likewise link that linear design with our proverbial path or journey. (To be more geometrically accurate, atheists see it more as a mere segment, with definite ends, while believers of an afterlife see it more as a ray, reaching into infinity.) However, the older I get, the more I have realized that Life is far more than “from Point A to Point B” or even “to Point Z,” for that matter. Instead, it is more visually like a scatter plot, as each individual point collectively becomes part of the path that defines us.

I picture our journeys to be more like the random pattern of flickering fireflies or a canvas of scattered stars. I think, however, far too many of us focus on the "best fit line” or “trend line," that summarizes our lives among these plotted points... but, that line fails miserably to describe our entirety. Some points are simultaneously represented, while others are distanced— both in time and space; and this is how we are present in the lives of so many, and they in ours— even if tangentially so and unaware— as we travel along. While we may be consistent in who we are, we will never be the same person to different people. Just as the atoms of elements remain the same, yet cause different reactions in different pairings and in different environments, so do we. Life is strange, indeed... and even more so if we could only see how different it would have been "if only" at any given point along the way. Thus, we essentially create our own "alternate universes" with our choices. For this reason, we should choose wisely and always try to be a positive point along others' paths... while never forgetting that time will always be the independent variable along the x-axis. For, scattered or not, Life will always be but a scatterplot.