No person can step in the same river even once

If we accept that no life can be relived or lived in roughly identical terms, we must first ascertain what content shapes that life, what defines that life. If two people end up in the same place at the same time, but one has suffered far more by losing money on the exchange rate, for example, while moving cross-country – are they the same lives – since the present situation is the same? Is the International student who pays high fees to enjoy the same environment as local students living the same life? Can all life be equated since the end is death? If meaningless suffering was endured, does that still mean the two lives are comparable if their ends are the same? Can’t they be compared?

It’s the reason why I am wary of ending up in the same place as I would have been if I didn’t move around so much. Kaz Hirai moved around and that was sth he could use to differentiate himself and ultimately land the top job. Meng Zi is the same. Everything that has been endured must leave its mark. Everything endured must be highly respected. No backward progress is allowed. Setbacks must be made useful, however distasteful they are. So if I stayed in Riverwood then I would probably be shit. But what would have happened there is not predictable. I think it would have been just me working at some totally irrelevant in the grand scheme of things place. That’s why I cling to the Japanese corporations, to Kazaguruma no Yashichi, to the websites I created and the technological factions I subscribe to, to the hobbies, interests and passions I encountered through moving around. These must surely be amalgamated and become a superpower, in the same way as amplitude modulation is simply the multiplication of the source signal with a function. In the same way as Ultramen tend to unify into one Ultraman to defeat the unending swathe of kaiju.

And certainly the people I have met are another key differentiator between this life I have led and other potential lives I did not lead. However, other people have never directly influenced my actions – we are all separate individuals. Often it is difficult to tell whether teachers have left their mark on the students at all.

It is all this that factors into a consideration of whether a different potential life would have been a better path. But it is best to not think about such impossible potentials, for it is useless, and belittles the fact that somehow or another, I am studying a law degree which I peculiarly overlook each time I evaluate the life I have led. Other youth can easily say that they have not thought about the life they have led thus far, let alone regretted any decision.