Let us just presume that, for a moment, Time Travel is a thing …. not for everyone, just for us, we have the DeLorean, it’s just us doing it.
You can go forward or backward, no limitations and as often as you like.
The first question would be, and really think about this, would you? You know, you might want to go back time, see a famous event, catch your favourite band before they split up, watch your parents get married or possibly just drop in on yourself years into the future and see how it all turns out … really, would you?
What if you had no choice, you’ve got to make 3 visits to the past, you’re past, you can only travel within your own lifetime.
I know a lot of people instantly think about this, they go back, stop themselves doing something really bad, prevent themselves getting involved with the wrong people, perhaps warning a tragically lost loved one and prevent their death. So many things happen to us in life we wish we could change, wish were just different. We long for certain memories not to be there for the hurt to go away. All valid thoughts but … this is where it gets interesting. Most of us, unless we really are up shits creek without a paddle, like an awful lot about our current lives. Perhaps value our friends, a loved one, children? What can we safely change which ensures we don’t lose any of the current stuff?
I’ve given this probably too much thought and can barely think of any significant event in my personal history I could change which doesn’t risk losing something good now. Even the most insignificant of changes can have huge consequences in our own timeline.
We could prevent a disastrous relationship but if we didn’t experience that, what would we have done with the time instead? It could change a whole string of subsequent events meaning that perhaps we would never have met a current partner, how can we be so sure where that one change will leave us?
Perhaps we consider changing the situation where we allowed someone into our circle which took us down a very dark path. Again, what do we do with all that time that person took up?
My conclusion is, any interference in any way with my own timeline has huge ramifications for every aspect of my current life.
The conclusion I reach is quite a comforting one, we need those experiences to be where we are today. All the good in our lives stems from the bad experiences as well as the positive ones. Try and think of a change you would make and let me know and also explain how you can be certain nothing will be lost.
It is the classic question of, if you could kill Hitler at birth, would you? Many come to the conclusion that he was a necessary evil, we’d rather he’d never have existed but, because he did we might have been spared from someone even more extreme and damaging.
It’s a fascinating subject and as I just stated, one I draw some comfort from. I don’t think we have to follow a given road in life, we have free choice but in hindsight, our experiences do seem to have needed to have happened.