Walt Whitman gave our multiplicity memorable expression: “I am large, I contain multitudes.” By this he meant that there are always so many interesting, attractive, and viable versions of oneself, so many good ways one could potentially live and work, and yet very few of these ever get properly enacted in the course of the single life we have. No wonder that we’re quietly and painfully conscious of our unfulfilled destinies, and at times recognize with a legitimate sense of agony that we really could well have been something and someone else.
