As a Doctor Who fan, I enjoy multi-Doctor adventures, in which they bring back their former lead or leads to interact with the present star. “The Three Doctors,” in 1973, set the precedent that the Doctors squabble amongst themselves. The Doctor is played by different actors, so they were like different people, but what if they were all the same actor?

I thought about it in earnest one day, and I concluded that, if my past selves met me, they would hate me, or at least see me as a big disappointment. If there’s one thing I do with gusto is reinvent myself every few years. I change hairstyles, I change wardrobes, I change shape. Sometimes I have a beard. Sometimes I’m wearing glasses.

In parts of college, I was a condescending intellectual. In my mid-twenties, I was a miserable

dude who partied somewhat hard. When I was a kid, I could be downright feral. And then there was the polyamorous fitness buff.

I wrote a screenplay about it. I started working on it in Atlanta during my society’s ostentatious 2021 annual meeting. I remember this because I was thumbing through the program for names. I had no idea what I was doing, and it shows. It was proof that an idea is not enough.

I haven’t really been writing anything new lately, but I’m still being productive by finishing unfinished books or completely rewriting garbage drafts. I’m adapting the screenplay into a novel, which means adding a coherent plot and ton of new material.

It’s a sci-fi comedy about a middle-aged loser who is temping at an evil genius’s secret headquarters. A cute scientist flirts with him for a few days, then she lures him into a dangerous experiment. The result is that his past selves have materialized with him in the lab.

The polar opposites that were Ryan, at forty-five, thirty-six, twenty-seven, eighteen, and nine, must all work together, with the help of the cute scientist, to escape before they are disposed of.

Anyway, this is my movie poster.