Making sense of nonsense

Today's Topic: Time Travel

Yes, time travel is nonsense. That's why people make movies about it. And it's also why, at the start of a time travel movie, you'll never see the words "Based on a true story." Black holes and wormholes are at the centre of it all.

It just so happened that I watched three movies this past week on time travel: Back To The Future 1 and 2 and for the first time, Hot Tub Time Machine. One used a hot tub to travel back to time, the other used a souped up GMC Delorean, equipped with a flux capacitor (no, it isn't a real invention.) The concept of time travel has always interested me, much like it did for Doc Brown in Back To The Future; where we are, where we are going and how we get there.

I think at some point we have all said "I wish I could just hop in a time machine and ________." Some of us would erase mistakes, or maybe we would bet on the future. Maybe you would rekindle an old relationship with that person you never should have broken up with. What if you could have avoided injury or failure, created Google or Apple, get rich, or finally "have it all." If only it were that easy. If only when you bought a Delorean and gunned it to 88mph, you could make it work and live in that alternate and perfect universe. Your perfect world where you can become whoever you wanted to be, live with no mistakes. And if you didn't fix it the first time, just keep traveling back in time to fix it, over and over again. It almost begins to sound exhausting. Instead, you're stuck with reality, and will 99% likely never get to experience the space time continuum. The basics surrounding time travel involve a black hole and falling into that alternate universe. Ridiculous? Probably. Impossible? Likely. For years, scientists have been scratching their head at the idea of traveling forward or backward in time. It's safe to say that unless a time traveller comes and actually TELLS a scientist that time travel is possible or not, (ironic right?), they will still be scratching their head for several years to come.

Why is it that we always dream of things we cannot control or experience? Would you really go back and change the past if you could? Or would you leave your life the way it was? Would altering a small part of the past change your life that much? Or would you still feel the way you do in this moment, in this life, on this planet? What about the future? Do you really want to see how and when you or your friends and family pass on to the afterlife? Do you really think it would help heal pain and suffering for your future? They are all valid questions, I realize that. I guess maybe the situation and the ability to travel through time would be different for every individual human being. And if someone finally did invent time travel, what do you think they would charge people to use the device? RIGHT?

Watching these movies made me realize the things in my life that at a certain point, I wish I could have changed or done differently. But from each of these moments where I failed or succeeded, it all made me part of who I am in this moment. Each mistake taught me a lesson and each success made me appreciate learning from my mistakes. Sometimes it's the struggle and the lesson you learn that makes you a better person. Do I have regrets in my life? Absolutely. Would I jump in a time machine to change my life dramatically? Probably not. It's tempting, yes. But it's not necessary.

Our lives go by second-by-second one day at a time. Everyone always says "Wow, I can't believe how time flies." Stop and think about it for a second, and you realize, isn't it amazing? How we age, how we grow, how our bodies transform, how we perceive time and change...it really is mind boggling. Our concept of time is night and day. Sun goes up, sun goes down. Clocks move forwards, not backwards. We step ahead to get where we are going, not backward. Everything in this life, in this universe, moves forward. Into time, into a future, into a world that has yet to be discovered by human beings. That's just the way it is. Every time we see a road, we travel forwards. We perceive it as moving forward. Every time we see the sunset, we hope in our minds that it will rise again the next day. And every time we see the moon fade, we imagine the night again after the day is over.

Yes, time travel is nonsense. Making sense of it has also turned out to be incredibly hard. However, the general concept of time continues to amaze me. How does life know to move forward and not backward? How did we come up with this natural progression? More and more, it seems like the world has made us want to have a little button to Undo what we may have done, thus changing the concept of time. Unfortunately, life doesn't come with the Ctrl + Z function. And if it really were that easy, would you do it?

The seconds of our life turn into minutes, into hours, into days, months and years. The question I will always have: Where does all this time go after we have lived it? Where does this time travel to?