What If Everyone Looked Just Like You?

A thought experiment for the holidays.

As a holiday break from the usual political fare, I invite you to suspend your disbelief just for a moment, and indulge in a thought experiment:

Imagine that you woke up one day, and every other person you gazed upon looked just like you. In this imagined scenario, whatever age an individual you might lay eyes upon, he or she would look just like you would look at that age. In children you’d see a lot of mini-me’s, and they’d all look just like you did at the exact ages of each child you saw. Elderly people would also look alike, all exact replicas of how you would look at the various ages of the those elderly folk.

There would be certain logical differentiations, to take into account the physical, emotional, educational, cultural, spiritual, ethnic and geographical backgrounds of each seemingly like-bodied individual you would see — as well as differentiations based on environmentally-related effects, such as sun-damaged skin, or physical evidence of prior physical injury of some sort, for instance.

Certain versions of you would have taken better care of themselves than the real you has, and others far worse. Among those of roughly the same age, some might have lived harder lives, and both their bodies and their personalities would be evidence of that. In other words, some versions of you might be missing teeth, others would show the results of working out at the gym. Some would be obese, others lanky or wrinkled, but all would look like you, having lived the lives of others.

In this thought experiment, only the physical bodies you’d see would be replicas of you, at various ages, all impacted by individual backgrounds. But of course, you the reader would still be your own reference point. The one you currently know as “me” would not change. And neither would the inner personalities of all those “me” look-alikes that you’d be looking at. Your neighbors would still be who they are inside. Their lives would be exactly the way they are now, except that they would all look like you (just to you), living those other lives, as they had done up to the present moment. Some would be PhDs, others transients, and everything in-between.

What about gender? This requires a bit more imagination, but assume that if you are currently male and you encounter a female, of any age, that person would look like you would look if you were a female, at that age. And of course, the reverse would be true.

Naturally, this thought experiment has implications. For one, because others would all look like versions of yourself, to you, your assessment(s) of them would now have to be based on something other than their physical appearances, which might be more of a hall-of-mirrors experience, on the physical level. To really know others (as individuals), you’d be relying on their words, their actions, their energy, and your ability to remember the times and places where you’d formed impressions of any given individual.

Additionally, just to keep things interesting (and equal), each and every individual in the world would be having the very same bizarre experience that you would be having — seeing only themselves in everyone they come across (regardless of what others looked like to you, or to anyone else). All others, like yourself, would be unable to distinguish physical bodies beyond various versions of themselves, at different ages, with different backgrounds, etc..

Let’s also imagine that when this happened, magically (it is Christmas after all), there was no stress involved on anyone’s part. No fear whatsoever. But new ways of assessing each other would clearly be required.

Would it be more difficult to engage in road-rage with someone who looked like a spitting image of yourself? Could you tolerate what appears to be a real imbecile (that happens to look just like you) acting in a way that threatens your own well-being in some way? Would your heroes be even more inspiring, given that they all would look just like you, at whatever stage of life those heroes might be?

Or would we quickly learn that looks alone cannot predict what’s underneath? A scoundrel would still be a scoundrel, but now more difficult to identify as such. Might we develop better ways of “reading” people — ways that we could depend upon? Or would we be reminded, when witnessing another’s life situation or actions, in what looks like some version of our own body, that “by the grace of God, go I”?

In politics, could you really hate some partisan that looks (uncomfortably) just like you, but is doing or proposing the opposite of what you would do. Televised debates would obviously be strange to watch, especially with numerous participants.

Would you have more in common with your neighbors? You’d certainly have this perceptual illusion in common. Could you overlook or accept differences of opinion more easily. Would you be less quick to judge? Would it feel too much like judging yourself? Or agreeing with yourself (yikes!)? Would you still be willing to shoot an intruder? How could you tell who the enemy is, assuming you have enemies?

On the mundane level, might you develop a new sense of narcism at what your looks alone have achieved in life, albeit through the lives of others? Imagine seeing yourself as your favorite movie star, or a tech billionaire, or that famous, inspiring writer, inventor, artist, or even as the Q-Anon fanatic down the street, not to mention that homeless person sleeping on the sidewalk.

Making it on one’s “looks” would mean that anyone who ever worked with anyone or helped anyone achieve anything in their lives would have seemingly been helping themselves (at least on the surface). And we’d all be in the same boat.

Would the self-loathing part of you cause you to dislike others in the same ways you dislike yourself? Or would the Golden Rule suddenly be front and center in our lives, made easier because of an unexpected perceptual shift? Who knows — it’s just a thought experiment. And it’s likely not anything that any of us would sign up for.

So don’t think too hard about any of it. It’s just for fun (and it may not even be that). But if this imaginary occurrence provides you with even a short break from dealing with the endless onslaught of political news, that will probably have been worth it. It certainly has been for me ;).

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On a personal note, I’d like to thank all of my readers for your continued support of my ongoing literary musings and observations re the events of our time, and for sharing my work with others. I will endeavor to continue offering viewpoints that I feel are “additive” in nature (as opposed to simply rehashing what you’ve already read or seen). Thank you for encouraging me down this path.

Wishing you all a Very Merry Christmas and Best Wishes for a 2024 we will look back upon with appreciation and gratitude!