Dominos

by Jon Sullivan - 2022-12-14 - Jonism

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I've been wondering about the choices that led me here. For most of it I don't even remember making them.

When I think back over the last five years and all the little choices I must have made that created Social Jon, Oregon Jon, New Jon.... I can't find myself ever even making a choice. Where and when was the moment that led me to sobriety? What was the choice and why did I make it? I don't think there ever was a choice. I remember an afternoon where I took a shot of vodka and thought that it was a bad thing to do to my body, and maybe I should stop. But I didn't stop. I just slowly drank less without really intending to until I wasn't drinking at all. But that process had already started before. That wasn't the moment. There was no sudden realization. There was no...... choice.

What about actually moving here? Surely there was a moment of decision. Go or stay. I can't remember it. It's as if earlier this year I just found that I was deep in the process of moving to Oregon without ever deciding to. Seriously.

And of course I was blogging through all this. So..... just check the old blog posts right? Easy peasy. It's not there. But there is an interesting post on 2021-03-19. Check it out in the archives. I hadn't posted for a couple months. Then, poof, I'm suddenly changed. Then I don't post again for three months. And suddenly I'm working on a plan for moving to Oregon. What about not being a hermit when I moved here? When did that choice happen? It didn't. I remember talking to my sister one day and just realizing I'd already worked it all out and I'd socialize in Oregon as a priority, giving up being a hermit completely. But I never worked it out. One of the biggest life changes in my 59 years. Poof. Suddenly I longed to meet people and have guests and find events. As if the internal debate and weighing of options and adding up pros and cons had been done for me by someone else, and then I just got handed the new script.

One goofy explanation I thought of recently - This is all proof it's a simulation. Some space alien gamer changed the starting parameters, relaunched the simulation, and suddenly I was different.

It feels like a long domino run. One tile falling into another inexorably, then another and and another, until the final tile falls and here I am sober in Oregon leaving the apartment and making friends and living in harmony with humanity and listening to weird music. Or are the dominos still falling beyond my control and some day New Jon will suddenly be New New Jon, and I'll find myself in politics and running for office even though I currently hate the idea and will never have chosen to do it? Will the simulation be reset again and I'll suddenly be who knows what weird person?

I was thinking yesterday about how this would all be working out if I hadn't decided to move. If I'd stayed in North Park. Would I still have decided to be social? Would I be going to concerts? Or was the move a required domino that made the rest of it fall into place? Was BabyMetal a necessary domino tile for being social? Was there never really a choice and this is the only possible outcome? Is it all fate and our choices are just an illusion?

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