BEING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE

Before the metaverse will eventually and inevitably become like that virtual reality entertainment universe called the OASIS (Ontologically Anthropocentric Sensory Immersive Simulation) in Ernest Cline's 2011 novel 'Ready Player One' - that second life for people where anyone could inhabit numerous avatars and converse in multiple worlds simultaneously - you should know there is, in fact, a woman who manages to do it all in just her one human form on this one unique (non-simulation) planet earth of ours in the year 2022.

Her name is Madame Impossible.

What is it that enables Madame Impossible to circumnavigate the globe with such dexterity and flexibility without ever seeming self conscious enough to remember the limitations of the human experience that most mortals have no choice but to eventually succumb to?

Is it perhaps her own fear of mortality that keeps her perpetually on the move, jet setting around the globe like a cross between Junko Tabei, Amelia Earhart and Indiana Jones?

I believe for Madame Impossible it is quite simply a fierce desire to commit herself so presently in each moment that she can live each single day as if it is one lifetime. When each day is a lifetime there is little need for regret as there is no fear of the past and no fear of the future. Some might call it nihilism; others might call it enlightenment.

Yes, she has a great deal of money to support her many expeditions and adventures, but unlike many she knows with similarly considerable wealth who wouldn't willingly choose to undertake death defying risks in order to live life to the fullest, she is prepared to do exactly that. If anything, they are far more concerned with trying to protect and consolidate their privileged lives for fear of losing it all. That shadow mindset for Madame Impossible is the very definition of true poverty.

And her polite critics might invert that same argument by reminding her that it is easy for her to live a life of adventure considering her considerable wealth affords her the luxury of being everywhere all at once.

Perhaps, then, it is Madame Impossible's fear of being constrained by wealth and class privilege (similar to Audrey Hepburn's Princess Ann's suffocated royal existence in William Wyler's Roman Holiday) that makes her want to break free from it all and remind herself of life in all of its many colours and permutations including its hardship and suffering. When Prince Siddhartha strayed beyond the palace walls he found himself exposed to the full gamut of the human condition. It enabled him to realise the nature of suffering that he had been denied by his father, the king. As a buddhist herself Madame Impossible is certainly mindful of these existential questions: belonging/non belonging, attachment/non-attachment.

It is also often the case in certain world cultures that an initiation takes place whereby an individual leaves the home or their village to go on a spiritual rite of passage. For the Aborigines it's called a Walkabout, for certain Buddhist monks it might called the Kaihōgyō (circling the mountain) which is ostensibly an ascetic walking meditation practice carried out over 1000 days.

However, in the case of Madame Impossible, it might be said that she has combined several of these ancient rituals and adapted them into her own idisoyncratic and timeless practice. Quite a feat in this modern age of ours where mystery can be as rare as silence.

Free as a bird, and almost just as adept at flying as those avian creatures, Madame Impossible is as much at home in the clouds as she is on the ground. Mastering her way through the 'signposts in the sky', she sometimes feels as if she is close to heaven slipping in and out of the clouds.

When back on the ground from climbing mountains, she finds herself as much a daughter of the earth as she is a daughter of the sky. Traversing the four oceans of the globe, she also feels as much a connectedness to the water as she does to those other elements.

With a complete mastery of what a human life can achieve, there is still a question over what Madame Impossible is ultimately trying to accomplish.

Flying planes into volatile and uncharted territories, climbing perilous mountains and travelling to war zones, it could almost be said that this omnipresent woman is trying to tempt fate with all her many daring escapades.

Could it be that in her mastery of everything and everywhere she has become afraid of somewhere, that place where so many people have no choice but to belong?

Or then again, has everywhere now become her somewhere?