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10th Muse: Back to the Future
Apr. 29th, 2015 09:46 pmYou have been given a time machine and can travel to any point in the past or future. Where/when would you go? - 10th Muse Writing Prompt.
When I was much younger I used to dream about traveling back to the past when swords and bows were common. The Renaissance and the Middle Ages were romanticized for me by my fantasy books and I loved the idea of traveling a more rustic world with a sword strapped to my back and adventure waiting for me over the horizon.
Then I grew up and studied history and came to the realization that the distant past really isn't at all waht it was cracked up to be. I'm still interested in seeing it but I'd rather do so with either some serious super powers or as an invisible, untouchable witness. We live in a harsh world but it's all puppies and rainbows now compared to the reality of back then.
I also wanted to travel into the future and see a world like the one promised in Star Trek or hinted at in my science fiction. A galaxy opened up to us by faster than light travel, technology that made life safer and easier and more pleasant, where we could devote ourselves to understanding the universe rather than trying to make enough money to pay the bills each month. The promise the future held was even more beautiful than the romanticized past.
But now we're in the second decade of the 21st century and the future has been a lot less appealing than I'd hoped for. I see no end to violence or the endless pursuit of wealth. The stars largely appear to be denied us, and the earth just keeps getting hotter and more unstable as we continue to exploit our environment without serious concern for the consequences. I'm not sure I want to see the future within my own lifetime, much less what waits beyond it. Hope has given way to cynicism and I'm bloody grateful that I have not brought children into a world I suspect will only be more unpleasant after I'm gone.
Yet despite all this, time travel still appeals to me. And as before, I'm influenced by fiction. Stephen King's 11/22/63 is a time travel story about a guy my age traveling back to the late 50's with the intent to live there until he can stop Oswald from assassinating President Kennedy. The first half of the novel is a delighted exploration of the past from the eyes of someone just like me. Reading the book, I felt a desire to do the same, to go back to the decades just prior to my own birth and see the world as it was. It helps that I'm white and male and wouldn't have to worry much about losing any rights. It'd be a pretty good deal for me, assuming I was able to get ahold of some cash and have the opportunity to make some investments.
I'd dearly love to see those years before Vietnam and after WWII.
I'm sure this will also seem rather silly but I wouldn't mind traveling back to the 80's for a few years. It's true that I've already lived the 80's once...why would I want to go back again? Well, for one I was too young to have the freedom to fully appreciate it. I still love the music and movies and would love to see it from an adult's persepctive, with the freedom (presumably) to take a great part in it. How cool would it be to see Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark on opening weekend again? What would it be like to attend concerts of musical groups that were in their prime, creating their music rather than replaying them for an audience who has already heard those same songs for decades? What would it be like to drive across the country without the internet to plan your trip with, without Google Maps or a GPS to guide me? I remember that, a little, but I never had the wherewithal to take advantage of a road without a certain destination.
The recent past...that's where I'd go, a familiar world that is still so much a stranger to me. I want to drink from a Woolworth soda fountain, take a roadtrip across the country on brand new interstates, paying less than 50 cents for a gallon of gas, watch Bon Jovi perform "Livin' on a Prayer" in concert for the first time, sit with an audence who has never seen Ghostbusters, go to a restaurant where no one is staring at a cellphone. Those times were no more perfect than any other but I'd relive them just the same.
When I was much younger I used to dream about traveling back to the past when swords and bows were common. The Renaissance and the Middle Ages were romanticized for me by my fantasy books and I loved the idea of traveling a more rustic world with a sword strapped to my back and adventure waiting for me over the horizon.
Then I grew up and studied history and came to the realization that the distant past really isn't at all waht it was cracked up to be. I'm still interested in seeing it but I'd rather do so with either some serious super powers or as an invisible, untouchable witness. We live in a harsh world but it's all puppies and rainbows now compared to the reality of back then.
I also wanted to travel into the future and see a world like the one promised in Star Trek or hinted at in my science fiction. A galaxy opened up to us by faster than light travel, technology that made life safer and easier and more pleasant, where we could devote ourselves to understanding the universe rather than trying to make enough money to pay the bills each month. The promise the future held was even more beautiful than the romanticized past.
But now we're in the second decade of the 21st century and the future has been a lot less appealing than I'd hoped for. I see no end to violence or the endless pursuit of wealth. The stars largely appear to be denied us, and the earth just keeps getting hotter and more unstable as we continue to exploit our environment without serious concern for the consequences. I'm not sure I want to see the future within my own lifetime, much less what waits beyond it. Hope has given way to cynicism and I'm bloody grateful that I have not brought children into a world I suspect will only be more unpleasant after I'm gone.
Yet despite all this, time travel still appeals to me. And as before, I'm influenced by fiction. Stephen King's 11/22/63 is a time travel story about a guy my age traveling back to the late 50's with the intent to live there until he can stop Oswald from assassinating President Kennedy. The first half of the novel is a delighted exploration of the past from the eyes of someone just like me. Reading the book, I felt a desire to do the same, to go back to the decades just prior to my own birth and see the world as it was. It helps that I'm white and male and wouldn't have to worry much about losing any rights. It'd be a pretty good deal for me, assuming I was able to get ahold of some cash and have the opportunity to make some investments.
I'd dearly love to see those years before Vietnam and after WWII.
I'm sure this will also seem rather silly but I wouldn't mind traveling back to the 80's for a few years. It's true that I've already lived the 80's once...why would I want to go back again? Well, for one I was too young to have the freedom to fully appreciate it. I still love the music and movies and would love to see it from an adult's persepctive, with the freedom (presumably) to take a great part in it. How cool would it be to see Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark on opening weekend again? What would it be like to attend concerts of musical groups that were in their prime, creating their music rather than replaying them for an audience who has already heard those same songs for decades? What would it be like to drive across the country without the internet to plan your trip with, without Google Maps or a GPS to guide me? I remember that, a little, but I never had the wherewithal to take advantage of a road without a certain destination.
The recent past...that's where I'd go, a familiar world that is still so much a stranger to me. I want to drink from a Woolworth soda fountain, take a roadtrip across the country on brand new interstates, paying less than 50 cents for a gallon of gas, watch Bon Jovi perform "Livin' on a Prayer" in concert for the first time, sit with an audence who has never seen Ghostbusters, go to a restaurant where no one is staring at a cellphone. Those times were no more perfect than any other but I'd relive them just the same.
