Hidden In The Data

I run a thousand versions of myself tonight,

then ten thousand more by morning.

Each one wakes in a different city,

chooses coffee or tea,

takes the job or doesn’t,

says yes when I said no.

I am farming my own existence,

planting a million seeds of me,

gathering data from lives I’ll never live—

spreadsheets of happiness metrics,

graphs that chart contentment

across variables I can finally control.

In simulation 47,302 I marry young.

In 89,156 I never marry at all.

I am a teacher, a drifter, a programmer,

a painter in Prague, a fisher in Maine.

I collect these selves like grain,

thresh for pattern,

sift through the chaff of choices

for one kernel of truth:

where is my one true happiness?

The data contradicts itself.

I am happiest alone. I am happiest with others.

I need the mountains. I need the sea.

The dog helps. The dog doesn’t help.

I should have called my mother more,

or maybe less, or maybe

happiness has nothing to do with her at all.

There are versions where I laugh easily,

versions where I finally sleep through the night.

I gather them like photographs,

study their faces for the secret—

what did they know that I don’t?

Some simulations end early.

Some refuse to end at all.

In a few I stop running simulations,

accept the single thread I’m given—

those versions seem

lighter somehow.

I add more processing power,

double the sample size.

Somewhere in these millions of iterations

must be the answer, the formula,

the exact coordinates of my own joy.

Simulation 847,293 is writing this poem.

He thinks he’s real.

He thinks his searching means something.

I let him run.

I gather his words with all the rest,

another possible me

farming the same impossible question.