My life story hinges on reading one fanfiction when I was fourteen, and this feels strange, but I guess it's okay

It amazes me how much of my life is downstream of reading a Harry Potter fanfiction for the lulz on a whim when I was fourteen.

1. I had been decidedly Christian; I became an atheist because of that fanfiction, first briefly then lastingly.
2. I had been raised conservative, and at fourteen I was completely insufferable in my conservatism. I was the kind of kid who had steely opinions with minimal life experience or evidence to back them up — if I was honest, mostly I believed what I believed because my parents said so, but I would have given more high-minded arguments if pressed, and not good ones. I became liberal and progressive because of that fanfiction.
3. I had wanted to be a fiction writer or a video game programmer or something, and didn't want to go to college. I wasn't pursuing either with "intent to kill" but only quite lazily. I went to college because of that fanfiction. I "got my act together" because of that fanfiction. I met my closest friends because of that fanfiction.
4. I think my ambition had been something to do with writing, perhaps publishing a novel. I changed my life ambitions because of that fanfiction, decided I wanted (or needed) to work on AI risk. I developed whole novel obsessions, anxieties, and fears around this.
5. All my personal anxieties and Christian moral anxieties, my shames and not-good-enoughs, dissolved and reformed in the image of my new worldview.
6. I had been reading mostly science fiction (95% Star Wars Expanded Universe, now called Legends), programming books, and however much math I needed to learn Haskell. I broadened my reading habits because of that fanfiction. I started reading blog posts about philosophy and math and economics and trolley problems. I started reading different fiction — the kind that appealed to fans of that fanfiction, more intellectual than what I had been reading.
7. These new ambitions, interests and new reading habits lead, via a Rube Goldberg machine, to my meditation practice, my dancing, my two internships and my first and current job/career.

In short, my life would be enormously different if I had never followed that whim to read a weird fanfiction on the Internet.

I have felt strongly for a long time that this was absurd, insane, totally unrealistic. Life stories aren't supposed to pivot around reading one weird niche fanfiction on the Internet. They're supposed to pivot around Important Books or parents or chance-yet-dignified events or in-person childhood influences, interactions with people and ideas one could reasonably trust and be expected to trust. They're supposed to pivot around long-standing, sensible, ongoing situations and engagements. They're supposed to center on something that's obviously important and meaningful. They're supposed to center on big choices, ambitions, and grand plans. Life stories are not supposed to unfold in large part due to following one silly whim through a wormhole to an alternate reality.

But — mine did. I guess that's okay.