I wonder sometimes how it could have worked out if I’d had decent guidance. The prospect of living back under my mother’s glare or having to do homework again feels awfully tiring, though. And I’ve forgotten my locker combination! And my schedule. And where the classrooms are. Fuck, I can’t remember what a secant is!
I would have to fight back for my own vision of life rather than my mother’s. Now that I have the life experience to even have one. Back then I was so aware I didn’t know anything about life and the world. Would she fold, or would she go thermonuclear?
Maybe the butterfly’s wing would be a little different and there’d literally be nuclear war.
Maybe I’d be satisfied to see videos of other versions of myself in other universes and see what was possible.
Say you still get your same kids.
I know the usual answer is to buy stocks, but that seems too easy.
If you were a character in a book, you’d try to stop one of the famous disasters. Conveniently, they always remember lots of details about the famous disasters.
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I’ve gone over this in my mind a thousand times. All the things I’d do different, and all the mistakes I’d correct. But in the end I cannot figure out how to organically build a relationship with my wife when I’ve made life choices that put me in a completely different career, and probably a different city than her. It would be impossible. Plus, I’d be trying to woo her with 20 years of history and love, and hoping somehow she feels that new relationship energy from us together? It wouldn’t work. I’d have to sacrifice the love of my life to correct the mistakes in my life, and that is not a good trade. So, ultimately I would not do it.
I don’t think I would. I sometimes wish I could watch some events play out again as my memory of some things gets worse, but I certainly would not want to relive it for a number of reasons.
Sometimes I wish I had a time machine just so I could take myself to concerts I missed.
I’d also tell my parents not to move. What a fuck up that did to our lives.
Ah, moving…there was a moment in my early teens when we could have moved, and I sometimes wonder how that could have opened up my life. Of course I didn’t know our finances and had little grasp of what was going on with my mother psychologically.
100% yes, even if I couldn’t change any outcomes or end up richer. Just to have a chance to see and spend more time with the people that passed away too soon. That would make it worthwhile.
I saw a television episode on Youtube once where a guy went back because there was the girl he didn’t get when he was around 17. She had been so built up with the glow of memory, but then seeing her again with adult eyes, she was like a kid to him. Pretty girl, but someone whose memory he could move on from now.
Maybe Back Then would be less of a nebulous, mysterious thing to think over if I had photos or video from back then. No photos or video? Must have been real horse-and-buggy days.
Did you see “Final Cut” with Robin Williams? It’s a movie about having a recording chip implanted in your head so people can watch your life after you die. Most of it focuses on the ethics of it, but there’s a few scenes about seeing how people’s memories of childhood events (it even more recent ones) are distorted with time.
I wouldn’t say it’s the best sci-fi think piece, but it could be right up your alley if you’re thinking of this question.
I haven’t seen it. I usually need a very strong reason to make myself watch something with Robin Williams in it, but I’m more open to it than seeing Jim Carrey, or especially Adam Sandler.
This isn’t a comedy at all. It’s serious sci-fi at a point where Robin Williams wanted to be taken seriously like One Hour Photo. YouTube a trailer for it and see if it sounds interesting. I haven’t seen it in like 15 years, so it’s a little fuzzy in my head.
Like I said, it’s not the best movie ever because it seems like this technology that’s ubiquitous is still incredibly controversial, which seems strange for something that’s clearly been around for a few generations. But it definitely touches on the subject you’re taking about.
I remembered a classic brain implant story: Learning to Be Me, by Greg Egan. Not perfectly on topic, but in case you like stories.
I haven’t heard it, but I’ll check it out. Thanks!
This is a common thought experiment for lots of people and the break point is usually kids or maybe a partner. If I could still get the same kids (implies same partner) then absolutely. I could be a lot richer, more successful in my career and happier.
Now that I know how things work I could just do them. They was nobody to help me learn important stuff. It was sort of “figure it out yourself”.
Fuck no that’s where all the abuse in my life lives