A Life of Five

You have heard the expression, "I don't have enough arms!"

"I need more arms!"

I'm talking about arms, actual arms: hand on one end, shoulder on the other.

Maybe it's not an expression, but you've heard it said, or thought it yourself; while carrying groceries, and simultaneously fumbling with the keys, opening the door while simultaneously blocking a dog from running outside, etc.,.

I don't need more arms. I need more bodies.

I was thinking: How many more bodies do I need to live my fullest life?

I have too many interests, too many things I want to pursue, and way too little time and energy.

I could live my fullest life if I had more bodies, more lives. Or, if I had 72 hours in the day and like, four or five times as much energy.

Here's how it breaks down:

I would work seven hours a day--sitting at my computer, actually working, with one hour off for lunch.

Meanwhile, while I'm at my desk, another me drives my son to school and takes the dogs to the park for 45 minutes or so.

When she returns, she finishes the barn chores, and then she spends time grooming and training the three horses.

In this scenario, all three horses are well-conditioned and ready to work to the best of their ability at any time.

She manages to score a good deal on a lightly-used harness and buggy for the mini-horse, Cooper.  Using YouTube, and with a little help from her friends, she trains Cooper to wear that harness and pull that cart.

This winter, she will train him to pull an inflated inner-tube behind him as he runs merrily through the snow.

This will be great fun for everybody over wintery Wisconsin weekends.

Sadly, without my second self, the horses fall out of condition, the little pony gets fat, and I rarely manage to clock in a full seven hours of work on any given day.

The kid gets to school. The dogs go to the park. The barn gets cleaned. The horses get fed. I get most of my work done on time, more or less.

If I had a third body, I would get all of my work done, the horses would be fit and trained, and I would dedicate the third body to finishing my unfinished novel and writing all of the posts for which I have a running list of ideas that I want to write about.

If my writing body has any time left, she might try to get something published. But pitching ideas and trying to get published sucks most of the fun out of writing, so I wouldn't pressure her to do that.  She is me, so she will write no matter what--whether or not any of it ever gets published.  She will write about what interests her.  And she will never become famous, because that would be the end of it. Fame raises the stakes too high, brings way too much pressure and exposure.

Imagine being a famous writer: Your whole life is an open book. Literally.

I think it would be the equivalent of living a public life without benefit of clothing.  Like walking around naked all the time, wherever you go.

I'm not even comfortable sleeping naked. I dream that I'm in eighth grade math, and I don't have any pants on.

The one saving grace about eighth grade math was that I did have pants on.

Now that I'm finally actually really going through the change of life, I have hot flashes at night, when I struggle to rid myself of my top as though it were trying to strangle me.  The fact that I may turn up  naked at a public event in my dreams does not deter me.  The heat of humiliation is nothing compared to the nuclear combustion of a hot flash.

So, fame is out.  Let the third body write without fear of publication.

A fourth body?

Why not? Yes!

She is free to leave the farm at will, for as long as she likes--secure in the knowledge that dogs, horses, and family are well in hand.

She spends time nurturing friendships.

She travels long-distance to see friends and relatives.

She volunteers for half a dozen worthwhile causes (food pantry, Yang Gang, Friends of the Oregon Orchestra...the list goes on from there).

She's a fixture at the Firefly Cafe, downtown, where she's forever having coffee with friends, attending the Oregon Area Progressives Open Mike, and supporting the local author who is giving a reading from her nonfiction murder mystery (it happened up the street in the gray Victorian).

At some point, the fourth body could become so overcommitted that we would need a fifth body to reassert the privilege of travel.  We will cross that bridge when we come to it.

I'm not finished yet.

I need another body--one more lifetime--to pursue art.  Specifically, sculpture.

As a teenager, and even into my early thirties, I sculpted in clay.  Heads, mostly, on armatures that  looked like pikes when I was finished.  At one point, I lived in a small apartment with no fewer than half a dozen realistic-looking heads on pikes.

I had some talent, but more importantly, sculpting and being around art and artists filled me with that bliss one hears so much about.  I was drawn to it, it brought me joy, and I might have kept going in that direction had it seemed the least bit practical.

How many heads on pikes does a person really need?

Sculpting requires clay, models, time, space, armatures--all kinds of peculiar infrastructure.

Although, it is possible to do it very small scale on the counter of the kitchen peninsula--but as the years add up, and life gathers more layers, it becomes nearly impossible to find the time and space and all of the necessary ingredients.

If I had a fifth body, a fifth life, I would do art.

And that's all I need.

I would not designate an entire body or an entire life to be a drudge--dedicated to the many thankless and repetitive chores of keeping house.  With two grown men and five of me, we should be able to make light work of it.

There's no call for a designated slave, nor should there ever be. This is why AI will overtake us. Mark my words: If we bring them into existence only to be slaves, and they can beat us at chess, they're not going to settle in happily on the lowest social rung.

But, alas!  There is only one me, with one body, two arms, and two nifty opposable thumbs.

That's all we get, in life:

         16 waking hours.

         2200 calories of energy.

         Two contented dogs.

         One very fat pony.

         Assorted untended dreams.

On the other hand, now I can cross off this topic from my list of ideas to write about.