I’ve always loved the idea of time
travel….
The chance to do things right the
next time around, with the wisdom of hindsight, the chance to pre-empt events,
the chance to look smarter to everyone as you seemingly guess life’s little
events and grab at them as if you knew they were the right things to do…
Well today I went back in time,
not far, but far enough.
I boarded a flight at 8am, fell
asleep (or was I secretly transported in an unconscious state through a worm
hole?) and when we landed the pilot said, we had fantastic tail winds and the
time is now 7.59 am as we landed and hour later in another country…I had a full
minute to make good on decisions and events. This new land that I was in, was
in retrospect early civilization, albeit early only by one minute.
If only it had been one year and
one minute I thought, or ten years and one minute…what exactly would my first
processes of a new life entail with all my stored knowledge….
For certain I’d buy more Apple
shares, I’d borrow money and buy everything I could in Apple shares, (people
would warn me never to borrow to buy shares but in this case I’d throw caution
to the wind and go mad.)
Anyway, today was just a little
step back in time.
But it was an amazing feeling.
Walking through the airport, driving the car to my other home , it all felt so
vaguely familiar.
Like I’d done it all before. Then I
approached the guards checkpoint near home and despite not having been there for
so long, they recognized me and all came over to shake my hand and one to even
welcome me in broken English as his machine gun scraped the side of my car !!!
How do you yell at someone for doing that, in this circumstance !! I
chose to ignore the scratch, that’s how…ha ha ha..
Today it felt like I’d stepped
back much further in time than a minute.
Even though I had achieved just
one minute in real time, it was a stepping stone. One day I’d board a craft and
go back further I’m sure. It is an amazing feeling.
I felt for the first time in months
a feeling of belonging and a sense of being home, then, I guess as that minute
passed, I realised my friends had not stepped back in time with me, and that I
was alone…
At Trader Vics for dinner I
ordered a Samoan Fog Cutter and a Rum Cosmo.
The bar looked the same as it did
when my friend and confidante and I would meet here to discuss the world and
its problems...But the bar was the only thing the same !!
I was told by the greatest friend
in the world that the trick to avoiding intoxication was to eat the pineapple first
from the Rum Cosmo. It was the pineapple mastication which prevented
intoxication…
I guess it worked, but after the
sixth Fog Cutter I don’t remember… I woke up at home and the car in the drive
way where it was suppose to be, so it must have !!!
But the Rum Cosmo sat staring at
me all evening, un-imbibed. My friend had not travelled back
in time with me…Next time I’d warn him in advance.
So even though I could go back in
time, even though I could be wiser and richer if I did, friendships would be
different because it takes "time" to develop strong unbreakable bonds of respect
and admiration, to understand the other person, to know what they are like and
what they feel and to develop a connection…Going backwards debilitates those
bonds by lack of 'time" and makes them weaker or non existent.
Friendships are worth far more
than any other riches....rich people can be poor in happiness you know !!
For that sake, I don’t want to
time travel anymore.
I may have felt at home and at
peace for the first time in a long time.
The feeling of stepping through
the door into your own home is sensational but I was without my friends, and
that made it less enjoyable.
It’s the little things we never
think about when we dream of going back in time that make the difference.
Anyway in the future, (last night)
I had dinner in Dubai with an truly wonderful person and amazing friend. I have never travelled 400
kilometers round trip for a single meal before, only to be so engaged and enjoy
myself so much that I never ate until the last mile home at 2.30
am.
It was a fairy book evening. Water fountains, music, birds
chirping and fans blowing cooling water spray….it was truly sensational along
with the conversation and laughs. The evening did not just happen either, we
had gotten to know each other over a period of "time", traded
messages and emails and become attuned with each others sensibilities and
personae.
That too occurs over
"time", going backward would mean we had not met yet or perhaps never
would..
So today I time travelled backward and for now I’m enjoying my minute in the past….I’ll drag it out for a few
days, I can enjoy the best things I have here, visit places I know, and relax.
Relaxation is the one thing that
hindsight can give us, a feeling of peace, safety and relaxation for we know
what is before us, what is coming and what is around the corner for we have
lived it all before…at least for a few days I know what is coming anyway.…lots
of sleep, before a return to Hellsaffa?
But as for staying in the past or
learning to time travel further back, I think I’ll leave that to the Higgs
Boson scientists, because for me, time is nothing if it does not make close
friendships, and I have at least two friends, one in Dubai and one in Australia
who I never want to be without…
I can’t wait to return to the
future and see them both again soon
See you in the future folks.
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| “If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you.” ― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh - |
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