Blog Dis
How far back would you go?
2025-12-02
Hypothetical: There's this time machine, and it works, and only you have access to it, and maybe some of your dearest friends and family but surely not your beer-drinking buddies after they've had one too many, while catching the ball game. You may enter the time machine at your leisure, and choose the year you want to return to but you must accept that you cannot go to the future, given that the future supposedly doesn't yet exist.
Or, does the future already exist?
According to theoretical science, the past, present and future all exist, all at once, though merely on different planes of existence, like timelines that are parallel yet not intersecting. For the sake of this post, however, let us pretend that you may only return to the past, given that the timeline has already occurred. So, you step into the time machine, and choose the year to where you need to return. Your time in the past is supposedly immutable, given that it has occurred already and has gone by, and here I question if the past is truly immutable?
According to Indigenous wisdom, time can be viewed in one of two ways:
1: Time is a wheel that turns and turns, so if you've missed some important moment, a milestone, an opportunity, know that it will come around again, so don't you fret one bit!
Or,
2: Time is a river that flows in one direction, like all rivers, and if you've missed an important moment or opportunity, you have to accept that it will not come to you again. Hence, why the Latin truism of carpe diem (seize the day) can mean everything to some.
If I were to step into my time machine, I would do so with the intention of changing my behaviour, where I had failed to seize an opportunity, something I regret not having done, that I should have done, yet was too stupid at the time to realize what I had failed to do. And this leads me to the juncture of living with regrets, and whether you have reached that stage in your life when you've accepted yourself for all your failings, knowing that you'll arrive at the end of your time on this earth without one single regret.
To continue to play this game, I'd step into the time machine and go back to the year before I had turned 13 years of age, when my paternal grandmother was still alive. I'd like to be able to spend quality time with her, just to chat, enjoy a glass of dark rum (her all-time favourite) and whatever time I'm permitted to spend in her company, to listen to her stories of growing up in Ireland, before emigrating to Newfoundland, with my grandfather, and most importantly to learn from her the skill of reading fortunes with an ordinary deck of playing cards. She passed on this skill to my father, and he had read the cards, too, and even my own, along with family and friends. Back then, my paternal grandmother, whom I called nana, was known in Newfoundland as a witch, based on the readings she gave, telling her avid listener what was going to happen to them. Her prognostications had come to pass, whether good or bad, and they had rolled out exactly as she had predicted they would. This is why she had been nicknamed a witch.
But being a distracted individual, the way I was back then, like all young persons, who feel they don't need to listen to their parents, much less spend time with them, or grandparents, meant that I missed out on this opportunity. So, for me to be able to return to the past, it wouldn't be to change a major decision I made, or to change what path I took in life, it would be something as simple as listening and learning, to soak up the presence of a particular person who had lived and experienced more than me. My paternal grandmother, nana, wrote limericks, and played piano to accompany silent pictures. She loved to travel, like me, and she had given birth to eight children, which is anathema to me, given that I've always known I wanted to give birth to books, rather than to give birth to ankle-biters.
Fantasies, by their nature, are supposed to be fantastic, which is what fantasy is all about, like pretending you have a time machine, to return to the past. I believe that if we had the power to change our past decisions, we would no longer be the individual that we've come to be in the here and now. Every step we've taken, every decision we've made, every misstep we've taken has all added up to a life experience that has shaped our thinking, our being and our successes and failures. Pull out one tiny stick from the pile, and the pile of carefully stacked sticks will crumble, like a deck of cards.
Fast forward from the past back to the present. If I wasn't such a knucklehead when I was a young teenager, and I had learned my nana's special talent, I'd be equipped with a delightful skill that would be highly entertaining, to learn a different way to dole out readings for the future, over and above using Tarot cards, or maybe I would also add the skills of applying ancient runes, pendulums, 8-balls, tea leaves, pretty much anything covered in the realm of storytelling.
This is where I would place this new-found skill, in the same category as other forms of entertainment. Sure, sure. It would be hoot to go back and be an innocent virgin all over again. I've asked myself this question umpteen times, would I change how I had approached my female sexuality? Would I make only the best decisions, knowing and believing that I am the master of my impulse control, rather than casually flitting from one fling to another? Maybe. Maybe not. More than likely not. 😜I acknowledge that the period when I was born was ideal for me, because as I grew into a young woman, I was raised in an environment that encouraged my independence, and to take care of myself, which to many young minds means enjoying what you have, before its gone.
We each know ourselves, what drives us to do the things we do. It is more an issue of what we choose to share with the world, often withholding the less than stellar behaviour, in favour of only sharing our brightest moments, our achievements, without fully realizing that the ugly stuff we leave behind in the past is in fact what adds the lattice work to the fabric of our personalities... and this includes our regrets.
Where would you go?
Or, does the future already exist?
According to theoretical science, the past, present and future all exist, all at once, though merely on different planes of existence, like timelines that are parallel yet not intersecting. For the sake of this post, however, let us pretend that you may only return to the past, given that the timeline has already occurred. So, you step into the time machine, and choose the year to where you need to return. Your time in the past is supposedly immutable, given that it has occurred already and has gone by, and here I question if the past is truly immutable?
According to Indigenous wisdom, time can be viewed in one of two ways:
1: Time is a wheel that turns and turns, so if you've missed some important moment, a milestone, an opportunity, know that it will come around again, so don't you fret one bit!
Or,
2: Time is a river that flows in one direction, like all rivers, and if you've missed an important moment or opportunity, you have to accept that it will not come to you again. Hence, why the Latin truism of carpe diem (seize the day) can mean everything to some.
If I were to step into my time machine, I would do so with the intention of changing my behaviour, where I had failed to seize an opportunity, something I regret not having done, that I should have done, yet was too stupid at the time to realize what I had failed to do. And this leads me to the juncture of living with regrets, and whether you have reached that stage in your life when you've accepted yourself for all your failings, knowing that you'll arrive at the end of your time on this earth without one single regret.
To continue to play this game, I'd step into the time machine and go back to the year before I had turned 13 years of age, when my paternal grandmother was still alive. I'd like to be able to spend quality time with her, just to chat, enjoy a glass of dark rum (her all-time favourite) and whatever time I'm permitted to spend in her company, to listen to her stories of growing up in Ireland, before emigrating to Newfoundland, with my grandfather, and most importantly to learn from her the skill of reading fortunes with an ordinary deck of playing cards. She passed on this skill to my father, and he had read the cards, too, and even my own, along with family and friends. Back then, my paternal grandmother, whom I called nana, was known in Newfoundland as a witch, based on the readings she gave, telling her avid listener what was going to happen to them. Her prognostications had come to pass, whether good or bad, and they had rolled out exactly as she had predicted they would. This is why she had been nicknamed a witch.
But being a distracted individual, the way I was back then, like all young persons, who feel they don't need to listen to their parents, much less spend time with them, or grandparents, meant that I missed out on this opportunity. So, for me to be able to return to the past, it wouldn't be to change a major decision I made, or to change what path I took in life, it would be something as simple as listening and learning, to soak up the presence of a particular person who had lived and experienced more than me. My paternal grandmother, nana, wrote limericks, and played piano to accompany silent pictures. She loved to travel, like me, and she had given birth to eight children, which is anathema to me, given that I've always known I wanted to give birth to books, rather than to give birth to ankle-biters.
Fantasies, by their nature, are supposed to be fantastic, which is what fantasy is all about, like pretending you have a time machine, to return to the past. I believe that if we had the power to change our past decisions, we would no longer be the individual that we've come to be in the here and now. Every step we've taken, every decision we've made, every misstep we've taken has all added up to a life experience that has shaped our thinking, our being and our successes and failures. Pull out one tiny stick from the pile, and the pile of carefully stacked sticks will crumble, like a deck of cards.
Fast forward from the past back to the present. If I wasn't such a knucklehead when I was a young teenager, and I had learned my nana's special talent, I'd be equipped with a delightful skill that would be highly entertaining, to learn a different way to dole out readings for the future, over and above using Tarot cards, or maybe I would also add the skills of applying ancient runes, pendulums, 8-balls, tea leaves, pretty much anything covered in the realm of storytelling.
This is where I would place this new-found skill, in the same category as other forms of entertainment. Sure, sure. It would be hoot to go back and be an innocent virgin all over again. I've asked myself this question umpteen times, would I change how I had approached my female sexuality? Would I make only the best decisions, knowing and believing that I am the master of my impulse control, rather than casually flitting from one fling to another? Maybe. Maybe not. More than likely not. 😜I acknowledge that the period when I was born was ideal for me, because as I grew into a young woman, I was raised in an environment that encouraged my independence, and to take care of myself, which to many young minds means enjoying what you have, before its gone.
We each know ourselves, what drives us to do the things we do. It is more an issue of what we choose to share with the world, often withholding the less than stellar behaviour, in favour of only sharing our brightest moments, our achievements, without fully realizing that the ugly stuff we leave behind in the past is in fact what adds the lattice work to the fabric of our personalities... and this includes our regrets.
Where would you go?
