how many lives can you live in a single lifetime?

This evening, upon reading Samantha Power's The Education of an Idealist, a particular part struck me until I needed to stop reading and let the thoughts sink for awhile. Actually, it's only few pages in, and I doubt that anyone inserted that as an important quote of the book. The part has only a line, where Samantha ponders on the fact that her mother is the person who can cram the most lives in a day, being a squash athlete and a medical doctor, among them. It resonates with a certain admiration that I have for so long, but not yet articulated.

It always struck me to see how people could seemingly live multiples lives in their lifetime. A doctor who is also a musician, an athlete and a journalist, or a PhD in microbiology then turns an actor...

How do they do that?

Or, perhaps it is me that has always seen it from a way too linear path. It's not a graph of x=y alone. It's not a game where we choose our mode at the beginning and that's it. Not a single contract in which we need to abide for the rest of our lives. It is our choice.

This year, I will be 25-years old. Another year and Einstein would have the time he needed to reach his annus mirabilis, where he published four groundbreaking papers, on the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, special relativity, and the equivalence of mass and energy. I know, I know, we don't compare age and achievements anymore. But those kinds of facts always make you think, no?