One

Read Richard Bach's 'One' this weekend. The book is good but it is not in the same league as 'Jonathon Livingston Seagull' / 'Illusions'. I expected more from Bach than what i got out from One.

The book is about alternate world or parallel universe.

If you understand trees, i think it is very easy to explain. A tree in mathematics is actually inverted real life tree. It has a root at the top and it has branches going down, and it has nodes where more branches branch out.

"One" talks about one such tree. Here the reason for branching is the choice one has. If you pick up one choice you traverse the branch corresponding to that or if you take the other one the other branch. In life usually one may not revisit the choices again. Effectively in life, each one of us traverse a particular path by making the choices we make. The alternate world or parallel universe is a phenomenon where in, the other choices exists or the other branches are traversed.

"One" connects these branches by making Bach and Leslie move across the tree, thereby making them realise the magnitude of the choices they had to make. Bach has put in lot of imagination into the book.

While reading the book, i could imagine the move 'Matrix' - becoz the movie talks about choices , the red pill or the blue pill, the left door or the right door, so on. The question is 'What If?'. The problem with choices are, it is difficult to estimate the significance/consequences/effects of the choice when we are supposed to pick one of the choice. The reality hits hard sometimes, sometimes one gets lucky. After all that one goes through, there is no way of telling that one can get their choice right the next time.

You can talk about alternate world / parallel universe, but what matters is right here and right now. I am not sure if there is a standard way of looking at the choices or going by intuition/gut feel is the right way to make the choices. But one thing that resonates in the book is "The choice is the difference". One is whatever he/she is, is due to the choices he/she has made during their course of life.