Time Traveler

Time Traveler 

I have long been fascinated by the concept of time and space. Time travel is, for me, the ultimate fantasy, and the ULTIMATE experience. Time is a continuum by which we are all bound. This is due, in part, to the magnetic pull of the earth, or gravity, as we are physical beings, and live in a physical world. I often think, what if we have a soul mate, or someone we would have loved to have known, but for the element of time, we were just not able to connect? Sometimes I just have an urge to reach out to a life that has already been lived and make it relevant to mine. Or, at the other end of the spectrum, I would love to meet my great, great, great grandchild, or some distant relative that has yet to live life in the physical realm.

How interesting it would be to invite a person from our distant past to our present day life. I would want to know what they think of the way we now live. Would they think it strange and foreign? Would they think it better or worse than their time here on earth? Would they be grateful for the life they had already lived or would they rather have waited until this time in history?

I would not be able to resist stepping in an out of various eras, were it possible. I would want to experience all the sights and sounds of the entire time man has been on this earth. I would want to meet the many people that I could never have met, at this particular time in history. I could meet the wonderful people, whom I know I would have liked and admired, but they were born to early, and I too late. I would want to be able to, at will, step into the past and into the future. I would want to understand what brought us to where we are now and how we will get to the future.

What does it mean that we are living in the physical world, in the realm of time and space? It certainly could not exist outside the physical realm. Or could it? What would it be like to not exist in the physical world? A place where time and space does not exist. What is the absence of time and space? How does one exist without it? The concept of time travel is a paradox and could probably never be achieved, simply because of the effect our existence would have upon what has already happened, and what is yet to be.

Our presence upon these various interludes of time, were it possible, would only bring us to an "altered" present. This is what is sometimes referred to as a "parallel universe". Past history is already cast in stone and cannot be altered. And we are barred from influencing what has taken place, which by our mere presence, could and would, change the course of history. The "Grandfather Principle" is brought to mind in this instance. Which is one that states, if you go back into history to kill your grandfather, you would never be conceived, thereby making it impossible to go back and kill your grandfather.

However, my desires are not for the purposes of changing anything, past or present. I would merely want to visit and observe. I would want to interact with various people from long gone eras, in a way that would have no bearing on what was, and what is to be. I would compare this experience to the benign act of riding on a bus. You get on the bus and take a seat. The bus is filled with passengers, and everyone is a stranger. People get off the bus, and more people get on the bus. That particular group of people will probably never be on the same bus, at the same time, again. But for one fleeting moment they were. For that moment, or moments, that they were all on the bus together, it made not one difference on the outcome of history. Nor did it make any difference in the lives of any of the passengers on that bus, at that time. But it was a mutual experience that they all had, albeit, insignificant.

So perhaps, if we could travel through history on a "vehicle" of some type, as passengers, and get on or off, at will, and observe from a distance. Perhaps that would satisfy one's curiosities and one's desires. Maybe observing the lives of those living in the present, while we live in another realm, could be enough to quell the desire to know and experience that which we could not know, first hand. Perhaps we are the people being observed by time travelers from the future and it is "we" who are not aware of them. Maybe that technology has been mastered already by people who have yet to be born, and it is "they" who are here with us right now, observing. Because outside the realm of time and space, we only have the present.

History is ultimately the continuum broken into many parts and all taking place at the same time, since time is only relevant, to and only exists, in the present.

Then there is also the challenge of having the willpower to not influence history if we could go back to key points in the past. Would we not want to warn the millions of victims of pending deaths through wars and catastrophes? What about the victims of the holocaust? How could one sit by and remain detached and not want to reach out to help. How does one live in another present that is our modern day past, knowing what will happen, and being helpless to stop it? So perhaps it is a blessing that we cannot step out of our present and thereby know the future.

I suppose this desire I have to want to go back in time or ahead into the future is one that we all share to some extent and is not unique to me. I suppose those who are drawn to the study of history, reenactments of war battles, archeology, quantum physics, and many other fields, are attracted in part, because they provide a way, to touch or experience, that which was. I believe for me, my interest in antiques, and other vintage items is a way for me to experience another era, and allows me to touch a time in history that would otherwise be unavailable to me. I feel a sense of "closeness" and reverence to generations past. I am able to piece together the lives people lived, through these "artifacts". It comes together for me, as it does for an artist painting a picture. A blank canvass becomes alive for me as I look at these treasures from the past. I can picture prior generations, going to work, imagine what they wore while dancing, the many courtships that ensued, the wars they fought as well as the movies they saw and the lifestyles they led. I see it all and love it all, it is my passion.

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