From the days when man was a ape to the modern day, our species has won many battles, reached newer heights, conquered the whole earth per say and achieved more than what any other animal (or plant) on our planet could ever imagine (if they had the brains to).

In this race to excel, we’ve overcome the barrier of physical distances (at least on earth if not across planets) to a great extent. However, the fourth dimension – time – still remains untouched. Time keeps running at its own pace, we can’t stretch it or shrink it, rewind or forward it. I don’t want to commit a mistake by saying it is impossible to conquer time, because we never know what the future holds for our civilization.

Anyways, this is not a scientific discussion. Its about a simple question – If I had a time machine, what would I do with it? The cursor kept blinking on the question mark for quite a while before I could think of an answer. I literally had a really speedy flashback of my entire life.

The first instinct to this question is to think about our mistakes and accidents, all the mishaps that occurred in our lives. Which one should I go fix? The day I got this scar near my eye; the day I had a bitter fight; the day I did something wrong; the day I killed a baby squirrel; the day … well, a lot of private stuff.

Psychologically speaking (this is purely my theory, although I’ve zero knowledge of the domain), if you’d want to go back and correct an event in your life, perhaps it means that you’ve not completely accepted and internalized it. You still have some grudges, regrets, feelings (related to that event) left deep within you, perhaps suppressed even.

Then it occurred to me, what about the happy moments of my life? I cherish and remember so many of them. Wouldn’t it be fun and thrilling to live them again? My childhood days and all the mischief I did; my school days; that playing in the rain without any tension; catching baby sparrows and playing with them; my college days; … and again a lot of private stuff.

If you want to go and live your happy moments, perhaps it means that the present isn’t so wonderful. You want to run away from the present and live the (so called) golden days of the past. It clearly highlights the dissatisfaction with your present life.

I don’t want to deny that I’ve grudges with my past life or the fact that perhaps it was much better than the present day. However, on the whole, I feel there is no single thing that I’d want to go back and change. The mistakes that were committed taught me something useful, the happy moments I lived are safe in my heart and make me smile each time I remember them. The present is awesome too, and I’m trying to make it better each day.

Anyways, before I conclude, just a small random scientific funda I came up with.

Time is a tricky thing. We think we could just go and visit the past happily, and alter it as we want. However, just like the three dimensions of distance, time is something beyond comprehension of our minds. The biggest justification that we cannot change past is the fact that it has not changed already. If we were to go back in time, and change something using a time machine, every time you live today’s date, the past should be consistently the same. What we’re living today is the sum total of the past and the alterations made by us in the past using a time machine. Hence, this is the only past that can ever be, none other would ever occur.

Adios.