Time travel preferences

If I could time travel, I wouldn’t go forward, because I don’t think that’s possible. The future is unmade and dependent on billions of inter-related choices and circumstances that all affect each other and are unknowable until they happen, so unless every microsecond in every space is predetermined, everywhere on earth and elsewhere in the universe, then I don’t think it’s possible to go into the future. It’s possible to imagine a future, and even plan for one, but as we all know, imagination and plans don’t always execute according to our expectations.

The past has already happened, though. Weather patterns, earthquakes and volcanos, the branch that snapped under a predator’s paw, the decision I made yesterday to make oatmeal for breakfast — those are all done and can therefore be revisited.

So if I were to time travel, I’d definitely go backwards. I have conditions though. I’m not sure if I’d want to engage with the environment or if I’d want to just observe, like Ebenezer Scrooge when the ghost of Christmas past visits him, and he can see himself and his loved ones in the past, but they can’t see him. But I do want basic safety; I don’t want to place myself in an atmosphere I can’t breathe, for example.

I don’t really care about going backwards in time in the place I live right now, either. Maybe I could have a time travel spacecraft that can move me quickly to various locations in the time period I visit, and it protects me, and will definitely get me back to my regular life when I’m done. Of course, if I have that, then I wouldn’t have to just pick one year to go back to, I could go whenever and wherever I want. In that case, it might be cool to watch the creation of the universe, and then fast forward to the time of the dinosaurs. I’d like to see some early civilization, too, like maybe tour the fertile crescent. And it’d be pretty cool to observe the Florence art scene in the time of Michelangelo and Da Vinci.

I have no interest in visiting a year in modern history, and certainly not in my lifetime. I’d go way back.

This is my entry for Bloganuary day 21: If you could, what year would you travel to and why?