In June 1971, I prepared a gift for my wife Maureen on the occasion of our 25th wedding anniversary. It was a large scrapbook that I had called "Memories to Share, On Our 25th." It was filled with old pictures, love letters (including V-Mail from Europe), and the recollections of things we did together. I even managed to find and include pages from our diaries that recorded our first meeting and our first date together in 1942.
As we sat there turning the pages, tears came to our eyes when we looked at pictures of our babies (now out on their own), or at their grade school Valentine messages to Mother. I even saved the brochure describing our first home, newspaper clippings of Maureen (as a model) in Maryland, and all the things that made up the milestones of our life together.
But then, as we sat looking through the pages on which I had written my fondest memories, Maureen would look up at me and say, "But Honey, that's not what happened at all!" And then she would go on to tell me how that event actually happened. I couldn't believe it! How could she be so wrong about something so dear to the both of us? Before long it became apparent that, although we had spent the past 25 years together, they were a different "25" for each of us. Not THAT different, but different nonetheless. I just couldn't understand it.
At first I thought that I was dealing with a case of selective amnesia. It seemed that we were both selecting which things to remember and which things to forget. In that way each of us would end up with a comfortable view of the past. But then I had a fresh insight, after reading Jane Robert's "Seth Material." There I discovered the concept that we may be continually selecting our experiences, from a menu of probable futures.
Was it possible, then, that I had chosen to experience a probable future that was slightly different from the one Maureen had selected for her experience? I liked that idea. But I couldn't see how so many private probable futures could coexist without collision.
I have to confess that I still haven't figured that out. Each of us must have an infinite set of scripts from which we can choose to act out our daily lives. The only way for two people to interact with each other is if their scripts contain elements from "almost the same" physical reality. However, since there are an infinite number of scripts, that shouldn't be a limitation. The problem for me is in trying to decide when Maureen is in my script, and when I am in hers.
In the meantime, whenever we find ourselves looking back at the same event from our different viewpoints, one of us will smile and ask the other, "And whose 25 is that?"
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