Aren't We All Time Travelers?
by Tim Vosika
We are all time travelers – albeit – in only one general direction as far as it is currently known. Maybe there are some folks out there who know how to go in two directions. When I was a painting contractor, I was hired by a general contractor, named Jeff, to paint a ninety-year-old stucco house. A critical decision came up that he needed to be there to make or my crew's progress would be delayed. Jeff told me on the phone that he'd be on site in about thirty minutes. I think he discovered time travel because he didn't show up until near the end of the next day. When Jeff finally showed up, I asked him a very profound and visceral question – what is the secret of time travel? His response included looking at me like I was a little crazy and gave a me a little chuckle. And still, he didn't make the decision I needed him to make – he was in a hurry and had to leave! Luckily, I was able to keep my crew working.
Unlike the future, the past isn't so easily visited, and this can be a nifty thing. So, how do we travel to the past? The future is pretty easy to visit – just sit there and the aether of time does the work – and Voila – the clock advances. To visit the past, though, we rely on spotty, faded, and flawed memories with some evidence such as journals, photographs, videos, and memorabilia items. The rigid fact about going backward in time, is that the past cannot be altered – we are merely observers. No matter what we do to relive it, or change it, the past is determined. Our bad decisions, our good decisions, and our indecision are enveloped forever in a great unbreakable mass of metaphorical smoky glass that obscures what it encases. Whew! I am glad for this – especially if we have a collection of hazy unpleasantness – maybe the marauders in our past are also frozen there, to leave us be forever. The good stuff is locked in too – also great news. We can have a gentle substance to always remember with fondness.
Of course, we have to live with the consequences of our past – good and bad. There’s no redo. Isn't it nice to travel time and move forward, grow up, and develop with our past errors fading away like monsoons followed by double rainbows, and then a warm array of sunshine! This is all simple and easy! And, it's also complicated and hard. With all the objects collected in our memory boxes, we can choose to use our present time to lock in some great decisions and consequences that we get to live with. There are many people who get to live with some extraordinary memories and after effects derived from their past. On the flip-side, some people have very difficult consequences and memories to live with – and many were forced upon them by others. There is a bit of superb news for people with these type of issues. They too, are time travelers. What an astonishing gift! By all our present proactive choices, our future pasts could be defined and constructed into striking architectural marvels of time travel – no matter who we are, or where we started.
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