The power I really need...

[jducoeur]

One of those games mildly popular among geeks is "Which Superpower Would You Want?". I've been through a few iterations of it over the years (once or twice here on LJ), and have found that people usually gravitate towards the obvious: Flying, Superstrength, Invisibility, stuff like that.

But y'know, as I look at my life, I find that the one I really *want* is that of Jamie Madrox, the Multiple Man. He splits into many independent bodies, which later rejoin with him. He's recently become a semi-major character because Peter David (a popular author) is now writing a book starring him -- Peter starts the story out just as Jamie is rejoining his selves, after sending a bunch of them out for a year to specialize in various things -- everything from Buddhism to learning piano.

It's really a delightful piece of fantasy for the Age of Busy. As I go along, I'm becoming acutely aware of the tension between sampling many things, and being able to do a few of them well. It's pretty clear that I desperately want to have my cake and eat it too -- there is so much I want to do and learn, so many projects that I would desperately love to be able to devote enough time to. But there just aren't enough hours in one life to do them all, and that's astonishingly frustrating. (My own fear of mortality is deeply bound up with the notion of dying with so much unlearned.)

Wish-fulfillment games like this can be startling in how they illuminate oneself; certainly this one is. I am so fond of being a generalist, but damn -- there are times that I dearly wish I could send four of me out to be specialists for a year or two...

Comments

[rufinia.livejournal.com]

Justin, Justin, Justin, if there were multiples of you, you'd *still* be over-committed, only more so. And people would feel even less guilty about asking you stuff. "Sure he can teach dance at my event while he autocrats yours and does a feast for the one in Maine. He'll just split off another copy..."