time travel

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Sounds Like Someone’s Got a Case of the “What If’s?”

If you could “redo”, would you?  Should you?

It’s only natural to think, “If only I could go back in time with the knowledge I know now…”  That goes through my head way more than it should.  About all kinds of things from my past.  But to be able to do that would mean I would have the mind of a 28 year-old and the body of a kid.  Unfair advantage.

I’m sure it all goes back to the hidden (male) feeling of inadequacy:

I should have made a point to build stronger friendships with certain people in high school and been more involved with school events, like decorating of the halls for Homecoming Week which I skipped out on.

I should have focused more on writing while I was in college.

I should have just gone to the University of Alabama and saved my parents thousands of dollars instead of going to a private college in Virginia.

Here’s the irony.  If I would have done those things differently like I “should have” done, I wouldn’t have gained the experience that I have know to even though that those things were what I would have wanted.

I would have probably just have ended up more confused with even more “should have’s”.

So I here am, still paying off college debts because I was “supposed to” go to Liberty University in Virgina.  When I could have just gone to Alabama.

In theory, if I could go back and do things in the parallel What If Universe, I would have been more confident in high school, I wouldn’t be in debt because of college, and I would have gotten a more specific education and would now be a famous author with a major book deal and a 40 state tour to sell my book, Scenic Route Snapshots.  They end up making a movie from my book, starring James Franco.

That’s me totally romanticizing my life.

But I’m here instead.  A great life.  I wouldn’t change a thing.

I just have to quiet that daydreaming tendency in me that wonders “what if?” Of course if I really lived in that What If Universe, I have a feeling I would still end up in the same place.  Dang flash-sideways.  Actually, things would probably be less desirable.

I would always be wondering how my life would have been different had I left the state of Alabama after high school graduation.  I would always be curious about that exotic life I never got to live.  I would be envious of the life I live now.

It’s often easiest to want the things we can never have.  Like the ability to go back and live in the What If Universe.

Whether or not my life would be changed, I couldn’t say the same for the lives of a few others in my life.  The reason my sister and her husband met was because of where I went to college.  Out of state.  The kids they end up having, in some fashion, I helped bring them into existence by my random dream to go to college in Lynchburg, Virginia.

And another married couple I brought together unintentionally:  During my senior year of college I ran the front desk of Liberty University’s brand new state-of-the-art student center, equipped with an Olympic sized pool and 6 basketball court.  I worked the early morning shift with a girl named Jen.  Every morning these two funny guys named Chris and Jesse came in to work out in the gym.

A few months went by of the usual random conversations I would have with them as they came in. The whole time, Jen was right there sitting beside me- the more soft-spoken one of us who observed and participated in our conversations of the day:  “Which movie is scarier?  The original Willy Wonka or The Wizard of Oz?”

For my birthday that year, Chris and Jesse performed a special dance and song they had written just for me, with the lyrics, “Naughty Nick, naughty, naughty Nick…” The corresponding dance moves involved syncopated pelvic thrusts and a finale where they pulled underwear out of their shorts and left them on the floor as a birthday souvenir.   (Check the comments on the “About the Author” tab on this site.  Jesse recently reminded me of all this, bringing this post into existence.)

Soon after, I took off a day from work.  I returned the next day to find out that Jen agreed to go on a date with Chris- a motorcycle ride and dinner, to be exact.  That was five years ago.  They have since been married and recently had their first child.

What if?  What if I wouldn’t have forced my friendly abstract banter with those two guys day after day?  Would Jen and Chris have broken the ice?  Or would he have just been another guy going to the gym have morning and she just another girl checking for student ID’s at the front desk?

Have I changed their lives forever by playing an off-beat pawn that caused them both to be on the same track?

The same could be said for John, the guy who introduced my wife and me to each other.

Thank God for all the times we don’t get to live out the “what if’s?”  My guess is that it’s often the somewhat seemingly bland path we did choose that leads us to take the scenic route.  And that leads us to the things we love most about our lives.

For the more comical version, read “Must Punch Punk Kid in Face”  http://wp.me/pxqBU-F5

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The Problem with Rear View Mirrors and Binoculars

“Don’t worry, darlin’. No baby, don’t you fret. We’re livin’ in the future and none of this has happened yet.” –“Livin’ in the Future” by Bruce Springsteen

“It’s such a drag when you’re living in the past.” -“Even the Losers” by Tom Petty

Some things (and people) look and seem a lot better from a distance, until you get more familiar and get to know them better.  That’s a lesson everyone has learned at some point. And we file that information away and are more skeptical because of it. But these “better-looking things” in life don’t just apply to right now, they apply to the past and to the future.

Being the romantic and nostalgic person I am, this tends to be a weakness of mine. Anyone who has known me since 8th grade has known that I am obsessed with the year 1983. While I was only 2 years old in 1983, I remember enough about it and have seen enough movies and heard enough songs from that year to know it seems to be the coolest year for me to live in.

It’s not just 1983 though, it’s just about every year I’ve been alive. My mind mainly only records the positive memories, not the boring and bad ones. So I have this massive slide show collection in my mind of all these funny quotes and moderately interesting stories that I tend to compare today to.

With countless files in my head of positive times in the past, it’s easy to look around right now and think, “Things were better two years ago” or “ten years ago” or “fifteen”. But it’s not a fair comparison.

And with the future. I have a great imagination. So many plans and ideas for the future for my life. I subconsciously tell myself, “Things will be better when…” Then I fill in the blank that I want to happen that may indeed never actually happen. Another unfair comparison to the present day.

Living in the now is a hard thing to do, especially when you’re prone to time travel.

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Dr. Deja Vu: The Scenic Route

If I could go back in time and speak to the version of myself from ten years ago, I would give myself “good advice”. About which college to go to, what to major in, what hobbies to take up, and where to live after I graduate college. About what to say to people and what not to say. There are a lot of things I would tell myself to do differently. So that I could become the best me.

But then I would be a much different person today. In essence, I wouldn’t be me. Though I would have life figured out, it wouldn’t be my life.

From 1995 to 2006, I spent hundreds of hours writing and recording and performing music. All that time, it seems all I really did was keep myself entertained. At the surface, it led to nothing lasting.

But writing hundreds of songs made it easy for me to write for this website. It took an old hobby to make a new one.

If I went back to myself ten years ago and told myself to take up an interest in daily creative writing (instead of music) so I could eventually have a website that a small corner of the world reads, the younger version of myself probably wouldn’t have been very motivated.

Life is made up of countless bland surprises that end up shaping who we are.  The ordinary turns into the exciting.

And of course my musical past is only one minor detail in the strand of events that brings me to my present day.  But without it,  I wouldn’t have moved to Nashville to pursue a musical career and a year later met my wife.

So what’s the best advice I can give myself today? Don’t go back in time and give yourself advice. It would only mess up everything. Not help it.

As much as I try to structure and plan out my life, it has ended up being something slightly different instead. Instead of taking the interstate, by instinct I end up on the scenic route every time. Capturing my current thoughts and perspectives in my writings which become like snapshots. Scenic route snapshots.

“And when I look behind on all my younger times, I’ll have to thank the wrongs that led me to a love so strong.” – “Perfectly Lonely” by John Mayer

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Dr. Deja Vu: Time Flies (A Deliberate Play on Words)

Flies. Only Mr. Miyagi and Daniel-son have been able to catch them in their hands. As for me, I’ve never been so fortunate. I used to think the fly was just smarter than I was. When really, it has more to do with time travel. The lighter a living being is, the quicker it is able to move and react, and the less gravity has an effect on it. (That explains why an ant can fall from any distance in the air and land safely every time.) Therefore, a fly can process action much quicker than a human can. Technically, time goes by much quicker for a fly.

When I swat my hand at a fly that is two feet away from my face, it would be like me seeing a skyscraper from half a mile away moving towards me at 10 miles per hour while I was driving a Lamborghini. In other words, I could very easily get out of the way in time.

I am intrigued by things like flies that can move so fast that I can’t see trace of their movement. Another example is the human eye. When I focus on the pupil of another person as they are talking, it shifts and moves so quickly that I can’t actually see the movement. I just see the effect of the movement: the new location of the pupil.

If I wave my hand as fast as I can in front of my face, I can still see the “trail” of it moving. Not so with the human eye. Or the movement of a fly.

This is also the case with many small birds. Though it does reveal a premature drive-a-Winnebago-cross-country aspect about me, I love to watch birds. The fact that they don’t walk- they just hop, without a trace of movement. The fact that they can eat a bug so fast that I can’t even seem them do it.

These thoughts and ideas will surely lead to the development and invention of time travel. Society will thank me someday in the future. Or is it really in the future? Maybe it was a long time ago when I helped invented time travel. It’s hard to know anymore…