Great to read you again, @d-pend. I like your new look, by the way.
I think that we have all entertained this what-if game.
I can identify with the duality presented. I think that deep down we all wish we were somehow different, closer to what people expect from us, if only we could still preserve our unavoidable self. The impossibility of such a feat leaves us with only imaginary possibilities of alternative selves who can live other lives and be and act differently
Hey, Henrry! That touches on something interesting, perhaps related to the (somewhat unquenchable) thirst for experience we all seem to have. Starting as a child, surrounding us physically as well as in imagination through books, television, and other media are near-infinite examples of what life might look like.
I have mused on the scenario many times, so that I can have one life as a linguist, one, a touring musician. Another might be a renunciant in an ashram, another, a brilliant physicist. One might be the shadowy leader of a criminal syndicate, another, a prophet. One, get married and have many children, the other, remain chaste. One, a dedicated hedonist, the other, strictly sattvic.
Alas, it is our destiny to have fragments of all these idealities in our very person, that paradox we call "myself."