The Meaning of Life - Who Am I?

I know myself completely and there is no human being on the planet that is exactly the same as I am.

At the time of writing, the population of Earth is 7,379,260,713 but this is changing every second. People are being born and dying every single second. The population is increasing because the number of births is over twice as big as the number of deaths.

You can monitor the numbers for yourself by visiting this page.   

I am still overawed by the fact that I am completely different from the other 7,379,260,712 human beings with whom I share this world.

 Isn’t that amazing?

Statistically speaking, there must be somebody out there who is the same age as I am, looks like me and acts like me with the same philosophy on life, the same skills and the same logical mind. The curious part of me would like to meet that person but, to be honest, I think it would scare me a little bit. 

I kind of like the idea that I am unique. 

Nevertheless, sometimes I ask myself who I really am. 

I can answer the easy questions, such as my name, age, nationality, description and even some of the more difficult questions about where I have been, what I have achieved, what I still want to achieve. I can also talk a lot of nonsense about my own philosophies and opinions on a variety of subjects, both banal and controversial. 

Does that tell people who I am? Well, I guess it does partially.

Mrs PM knows me more than anybody else on planet Earth and if asked, I’m sure that she would claim to know me inside and out. 

But she’s wrong and I think she knows that.

For example, she reads this blog and quite often expresses amazement at the things I write. On my post about mosquitos, she wrote a comment on the blog saying:

“I had no idea all of this was going through your mind!”

I think she reads the blog to learn more about the person she lives with. 

Equally, I know a lot about Mrs PM but I would never claim to know everything about her. 

Every person , no matter how much in love they are or how open they are with other people, keep part of themselves hidden to protect them. Imagine for a second how terrible it would be if you were in the same room as a person who could read your mind completely.

It would be absolutely unbearable.

That’s one reason I would love to able to read people’s minds, particularly those I know. My curiosity would know no bounds. What are people really thinking? Are they telling the truth or brilliantly concealing their true thoughts and intentions?

Actually, thinking about it, perhaps it wouldn’t be such a good idea to delve into the inner mind of your friends. You may discover something you don’t like about their thoughts. Perhaps it’s best to maintain an air of mystery.

You may feel that you have an insight into who I am, dear reader, thanks to the tripe that I continue to write on this blog. You certainly know that I am a 53 year old man called Dave who works in IT, lives in Manchester, likes rock music and is keen on travel. I may have revealed other things about myself inadvertently but that was almost certainly more by accident than design.

I masquerade as a guy who calls himself Plastic Mancunian, a cyber-identity that initially I wanted to use to remain anonymous, until a couple of work colleagues spent the time searching for it. In fact, they used their knowledge of me to actually find the blog because even though I wanted to create a different persona on the blog, I couldn’t help revealing who I was, albeit with a little subtlety. 

No matter how much I tried to remain anonymous, I was betrayed because I allowed the Plastic Mancunian to become a caricature of Dave, the ranting old git, allowing my true self to be revealed in the rambling posts.

That was a shame. I really wanted to remain anonymous so that I could allow the anarchist within me to surface and take on a persona of its own.

The colleague who finally exposed me apologised but I’ve forgiven him because ultimately I’m proud of my own little corner of cyberspace. 

I said earlier that there are people in the world who look like us. Having done a little research, apparently there are seven such people in the world and they are known as twin strangers. 

There is actually a website you can use to find your twin strangers and some of the examples they have are amazing. 

You can check it out here.

I am contemplating having a go myself. There must be a Plastic Mancunian Doppelganger out there.

In the meantime, here are a couple of my celebrity lookalikes (according to friends, colleagues and cheeky buggers). 

A Plastic Mancunian called Dave

Keith  "Cheggars" Chegwin

Jerry Springer

Charlie and Craig Reid (aka The Proclaimers)

Garth Algar

Joe 90

Benjamin Button

Do you think I look like these guys?

As Mrs PM says, I do have two clones in the world – my sons are the spitting image of me – poor buggers!

The Clone Show (presented by Mrs PM)

How about you, dear reader.

Do you consider yourself to be unique?

Would you like to meet a person who thinks exactly the same as you?

Who are your lookalikes (celebrity or otherwise).