Soft science fiction
What would you do if you had a time machine? Cruise across the clock and even hit a deadline once in a while?
Einstein’s scribblings on relativity looked good on paper. But just a few (light) years later, Steven Hawking mused:
“If time travel is possible, where are the tourists from the future?”
Now, if I was from the future and I could choose any stage of civilisation, I’d swerve this shower and dabble in the age of enlightenment. The voyeuristic appeal of a closed-down John Lewis and a Zoom invite just wouldn’t cut it. Plus, who’s to know who’s from the future anyway? The person behind the Post Office counter wearing a tin foil hat and blockchain trainers, perhaps.
Ironically, the theory of relativity means the human race has put in a lot of hours trying to manifest time travel. Perhaps that energy could be better spent just looking after the time we have - living in the moment, averting environmental armageddon and building immortality of sorts; a creative legacy that doesn’t swallow our very existence.
Time travel, the spies approach
In the 80s, the CIA investigated the ‘Gateway Experience’ technique to alter consciousness and ultimately escape spacetime. Thobey Campion wrote about it for Vice, here.
Campion uses the (again, majorly theoretical) research to suggest our consciousness and comprehension as human beings is illusory:
“…Suffice it to say, the hologram that is our experience is incredibly good at depicting and recording all the various energies bouncing around creating matter. So good, in fact, that we buy into it hook, line, and sinker, going so far as to call it our ‘life’.”
As baffling as it is, the original idea’s as old as the ancient philosophers. Life as illusion is just one interpretation of The Allegory of the Cave. Plato could have consulted for the CIA, I’m sure.
Time spent as a measure of success
We fetishise time. The amount of time we invest in something imbues it with more value. Culturally, longevity of everything has become a byword for success - in the simple case of relics like the Egyptian pyramids, this holds true.
**I measure the success of my browser on the longevity of multiple tabs staying open. I know I’m not alone.
Modern philosophers challenge the ‘longevity equals success’ correlation - especially in our relationships. Moving on gives us freedom to grow and keep learning. It’s freeing to think that the best relationships - ergo lessons in life - don’t need to stretch on for eternity.
In the How to Fail podcast, School of Life author, Alain De Botton explains:
“We tend to imagine that the only relationship that is viable is one that lasts forever, that the real success of a relationship is its longevity…but there’s something potentially beautiful and liberating that someone can be immensely important in a person’s life and yet not there forever.”
Any time we have invested may be viewed as ‘wasted’ and yet it has still enriched our lives with meaning and value. Antoine de Saint-Exupery, the French author of the allegorical kid’s classic The Little Prince, sums it up:
“It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.”
Dear people of the future
On a less introspective note, I watched some old Tony Law stand-up - his satirical letter to the people of the future. I first heard about it on the Adam Buxton podcast. Here’s how Law sets the tone:
“Dear people of the future. You’re dickheads. What’s it like living on a planet stripped of its resources? Bet you have a lot of windmills…”
Great, directional comms. The future laughs and approves.
Hands up the next-generation
Did you know the gesture, ‘call me’ has now morphed from a finger and thumb to a flat palm?
Disclaimer: How the rise of new tech impacts our non-verbal communication might make you feel old.
A time machine in this case would be pretty handy.
Gold dust
You’re here for the jewellery spoils? Then try this space-time charm.