Time Travel

I'm thinking anyone who visits a site called The League of Reluctant Adults has to have considered the possibility at one time or another. Could people travel through time? Where would they go? Who would they try to meet? If this was possible, what impact would that have on the past? The future? And, perhaps most important, the variety of Blizzard flavors at Dairy Queen?

I'm not sure I'd take the leap. Grace isn't one of my virtues, and sure as the Time Guide told me to stay on the path, I'd fall off and smash a beetle. Bam. End of the world as we know it.

However, I would like to visit a few places, just to see if my theories hold. Like, I'm pretty sure many sites that seem simple and romantic now (like eighteenth century England) smelled strongly of perspiration and poo. I'd also be quite interested to see if anybody had the majority of their teeth beyond the age of twenty back then. And if I could meet anybody from history--well, I don't know. That's a lot of names to choose from. Who would you pick?

Comments

I think I'd fall off the path, too. Time travel is scary, but I love stories that play with time, history and alternate futures.

This might sound strange, but I'd love to go back in time and meet my dad when he was in his twenties. He's led such a colorful life and he refuses to tell me a lot of the stories (which makes me believe "colorful" is way too polite a word to describe his early years).
Zita said…
I'm with you, too--I'd fall almost immediately. Especially if I were to meet anybody I wanted? How could I possibly not interact with him? And of course, he would fall desperately in love with me, and there would go history. Again. Right after the beetle you stepped on! LOL
Jay said…
There are a few on my list. Ben Franklin, Teddy Roosevelt, Thomas Jefferson, Lewis and Clark are at the top. :D
Anonymous said…
I think if my molecules survived the disassociation and reconfiguration, and I had one head, ten fingers and ten toes, and no extra limbs, I'd take the leap.
Who would I like to meet? I'd have to say Albert Einstein. He's the only one that comes to mind at the moment. Johannes Kepler would be cool too. I am an Astronomy and Physics major, so meeting these scientists would be an epic win for me.
Adele said…
I'd want to go back and hit the opium and absinthe with Coleridge and go. Thin guys in frilly shirts spouting poetry, yup, my kind of party.
I've thought about this a few times and going back to meet important historical figures doesn't appeal to me, the romantic poets though...they've always been important to me, even if they were the junkie rock stars of their day.
Anonymous said…
I'd want to go back and see if King Arthur and Camelot really existed. As well as Robin Hood. I'd want to know if mythical characters really lived.
Anonymous said…
I think the Timey-Wimey Ball would keep me mostly in check and stop/force me to keep history going as normal. Once I was fairly certain of that, then it's off to the future to stock up on supplies before heading of to the past, wherever I feel like going, probably getting lots of interviews on tape. And hoping that somewhere along the line, the universal translator doesn't break.
Nicole Peeler said…
I'd want to trade aphorisms with NIetzsche, but since all I can say in German is "vegetable soup" and "I would like an Andalusian stallion," I suppose conversation would be limited.
Anonymous said…
Why does everybody always want to go back in time? Doesn't anybody want to see what the future is going to be like? How seriously messed up will the planet be? Who'll be on top of the world? If I want to know about the past I can read a book. But the future...that's unknown territory.
Anonymous said…
From my current perspective, I'd be more interested in visiting a town/area over the course of a century or so to watch it develop from an empty region to a thriving town.

I feel like if I were able to get that sense of how it actually grew and evolved, I could really capture that sense of history in my work. And there would be that sense that it was "my" town. I'd probably pick a small-ish town in the south somewhere.

Not so interested in meeting historical people. I'm assuming they would probably get one look at the way I dress or hear me talk and think I'm insane and have me locked away.
Anonymous said…
" Nicole Peeler said...
I'd want to trade aphorisms with NIetzsche, but since all I can say in German is "vegetable soup" and "I would like an Andalusian stallion," I suppose conversation would be limited."

I can help you with your German. Try: Eine Beer, bitte!

Enjoy your beer. That's all the Army and 2 tours of Germany taught me.
Linda Wisdom said…
I love visiting ghost towns and while the idea of visiting the towns in their heyday, as in Gold Rush and Silver boom, I'd also have to remember outhouses, no electricity, and so on.

Plus, I'd have to remember not to do something that would change history. Unless it meant I could come back to the present filthy rich. That would work.

Linda
Nicole Peeler said…
Tom: I'd probably need to know, "Eine beer and hold the syphilis, Nietzchster."
Anonymous said…
I dunno if I'd enjoy it too much, as by the very act of traveling back your effecting the timeline and thus having enacted with the past changed the future so that you might technically not exist or the machine may not have been invented thus creating paradox.

It would be a tricky thing to work with as you'd also have different memories so would you be changed in a sudden rush of time catching up or would you cause brain injury etc.

I suppose were it possible I'd like to have a meal with people like my Grandfather who I didn't get to know that well before he passed the veil. I suppose one of those who would you invite to a meal.

Other than that Im always one that would like to get to see things on a practical level, I hate being told that things were done this way or that but its educated guesses, I want to see the real thing such as everyday trades and clothing. Perhaps not that adventurous I suppose but I'd find it facinating.
Anonymous said…
Catfriend: I think we'd all go gadding off to the future, eventually. I think a lot of us remember the world of 802,701 C.E. fairly well, though. Going too far into the future means seeing what we've become, or what we've done, or finding out that at some point in the future, we humans destroyed ourselves and/or the planet. the future could be depressing in showing us the consequences of all the actions that we took as a species. The past, well, sure it sucks in a lot of ways, but its also fairly fixed. The atrocities have already happened.
GB said…
Anytime I start thinking about Time Paradoxes, I almost give myself a stroke. I seriously can't brain it so it's a good thing I can't travel anywhere through time other than forward at the current rate - I'd be too much of a temporal liability!

Who would I meet or what would I do? I agree with Gareth; I would check out periods in history to see if modern theories about How They Did Stuff stand up to the reality and talk to the people for whom all that Stuff was a reality. Things like - if medieval and renaissance women really go without underwear; if oral and personal hygeine during the Elizabethan period was truly worse in the upper classes than for the lower classes; the comparison of rights afforded to the populace between the medieval, renaissance, Georgain, Victorian and modern periods; by what degree did life improve for a labourer after The Plague devestated the popuation.

You know, meaningless stuff like that. ;)
Anonymous said…
I asked this the other day on my blog. If there haven't been any documented time travelers as of yet, doesn't that mean time travel (to the past) will never be invented? Or do they just hide themselves very well?

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