⚡ August 20, 2016
The Mandela Effect 🌀
It’s high time I write something – anything – to keep this journal alive and eventually have something to offer the mobs of people when they finally find me and come to read. I have been starting and abandoning many different topics these last few weeks … mostly because of the nasty politics that are currently consuming me. I am becoming addicted, bewitched, bothered.
Sure, other things are sometimes on my mind, and I am actually doing many physical things when I’m not sitting on the couch reading or watching news of the presidential race. But from dinner until well into the night, I tape and review shows on MSNBC, CNN, and even Fox with my lefty-leaning friends like Rachel and Joy and Steve and now especially Chris and John. I follow some of them on Twitter and I’m only one step away from abandoning all pretense of passivity and just diving in and trying to persuade readers and listeners to avoid voting for Donald Trump, at all costs.
That’s what I want to do; what I end up doing is perhaps more tailored to self-preservation come November and the inevitable switching of realities, based on which team wins. There is a phenomenon in some of the circles I frequent that is called – by its adherents and apologists – the Mandela Effect. It offers itself as proof positive for the alternate-universe theory which suggests that you’re not actually going crazy or getting early-onset Alzheimer’s when you thought the Barenstain Bears were actually the Barenstein Bears.
No, you’re not mis-remembering a common thing such as Nelson Mandela’s actual death-date or whether a character in a James Bond film originally wore braces. No … it’s not your fault; it’s the fault of the universe, which unceremoniously split or replicated while you weren’t watching, and here you are: A place unremembered, yet believable.
None of this is even remotely true, but to disprove each incident fans post online takes more effort than an entire Ministry of Truth can exert. Instead, if we want to stay friends with our neighbors and chat-buddies, we must agree to disagree and respect the various alternate universes as they intersect like billiard balls on a baize tesseract.
I’m just here to protect my universe better than I did on 9/11, when I was in business with many right-wing-thinking individuals. There was a slippery slope of intolerance and superior thinking, but we thought we could stay in business and keep our silences and pretend to go along. I mutely found myself in the world those crashing buildings wrought. I don’t want any more chaos.
So, I might have to speak up. It’s terrifying, but if it’s my only chance to hook into any possible future with Hilary as Madame President, I’m willing to give it a try. Make sure the headline on November 9 is the inevitable “Trump: You’re Fired!” 🐔