Multiple Lives

We all live multiple lives. Each with its own reality. I’ve been thinking lately about how this is true. As I see it, I currently live six lives.

One life I lead is with my family, I don’t mean my wife and kids. They kind of blend into all of my lives. By my family, I mean my mother and my brothers. I’ve always been close to them, but distance has made it harder to connect with them the way that I used to. The closest brother is two-hours away, and the others are more than five hours away. None of them are very much into the Internet, so communication is sparse between us. I only see any of them once, maybe twice a year. My family really doesn’t relate to my other lives. Since none of them spend much time on the Internet, it is unlikely, they will even see this post. All of our communications are the old fashioned kind, telephone, and face to face when we can manage to get together. When I was younger, this part of my life was by far the most important. It still is important to me, but is far from my primary focus.

Then there is my work life. I get along well with my coworkers, but for the most part, we don’t really socialize outside of work. This past weekend, one of them asked me to join him at the Traverse City ComicCon. That was when it really hit me—I lead multiple lives. Most of my coworkers couldn’t care less about my other lives. In fact, I would bet that only one or two of them will read this blog. (Hi Karin, I know you will read it.) Since I spend so many hours every day dealing with work, this is obviously a large part of who I am. That life has started to expand recently. More on that later.

Another life I lead is related to podcasting. That is my most wide spread life. Through Variant Frequencies, I have friends all over the world. This is a relatively new life for me. Variant Frequencies has been going since January of 2006. My podcast life has been a very rewarding one. I’ve met some really fantastic people. They are very supportive and caring. It lets me be creative in ways that I’ve not had available to me in the past. Once again, this life really doesn’t connect with my other lives. The fans of our podcast, and my podcasting friends really don’t know that much about my other lives. And, to most of them, my other lives aren’t important.

The fourth life I of mine is gaming. I’ve been an RPG player since 1976. Since I’ve been doing that for over thirty years, it has been an important life for me. I have a small circle of friends whom I’ve gamed with for about fifteen years now. These guys are among my closest friends. Even they aren’t involved in all of my lives. They have no connection to my work, and I’m not even certain how much they listen to my podcast.

Number five is martial arts. That is another life of mine that is separate from everything else. I also started doing martial arts over thirty years ago. Took some time off, and then started up again. With just a few exceptions, the people in my martial arts life aren’t connected to my other lives.

The sixth life is with my wife and kids. This is my only life that has a connection to all of the others. Obviously, they have a connection with my first life, family. However, their connection to my family is the same as mine. They see each other once or twice a year. One interesting thing of note. Electronically, I’m more connected to my wife’s family than I am to my own. Almost all of my in-laws follow me on Twitter, and are friends on Facebook. I think it is funny, in that respect, I’m closer to them than my own family. Some of them will actually read this post.

Through my over 50 years of living, I’ve lived other lives too. There was school, soccer, other places of employment, theatre, and probably others that I’m not thinking of right now. They all were separate, yet they did overlap at times.

Speaking of overlap. The Internet has changed everything. Before the Internet, my lives were more separated than they are today. Years ago, we didn’t have Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, or whatever social media you want to use. Now with things like Twitter and Facebook, our lives are overlapping more than ever. It is strange to have my co-workers and in-laws following me on Twitter, or on Facebook. I don’t object, but it does make me really think about what I post. Social media has given us an incredible amount of freedom while restricting us at the same time.

So, how many lives are you living? I’ll bet if you think about it, there is far more than one.