Personal Growth and Time Travel

A lot of us, whether we love time travel or not, have uttered the phrase, "If only I could go back and time and tell myself..." You can fill in that blank spot with whatever you like (knowledge about soon-to-be exes, knowledge and who you could have made a potential ex, winning lotto numbers, etc.). This idea shakes some of us to our very core and has become the premise for some of the greatest movies/TV shows. A lot of these movies and shows avoid this simple idea by claiming the world will end if the time traveler where ever to meet a future or past version of his/herself.

Since we don't know much about time travel, lets assume that there is a possibility that the world-exploding-when-meeting-yourself situation doesn't actually happen. Now take an average scenario that everyone wishes they could change, something like asking out the person you had a crush on when you in high school (having found out sometime later that they had a crush on you too). There are a few possible scenarios as to what could happen:

• Nothing (The Grandfather Paradox) - Nothing would have changed at all. Your life would basically follow the same course of events. This can lead to being massively unfulfilled.  

• Minor Change - There might be some change, but it would be hardly noticeable. There would be question if the trip was actually real. While this might somewhat unsettling, it may be uplifting.  

• Major Change - You would wake up and everything around you would look entirely different. Your wife would be someone else, your kids would be different, you might have a turtle instead of a bird. The massive downside to this would be an entirely different set of facts to have to relearn and memorize. If your old significant other was pissy that you never remembered an anniversary, think how shitty the new one will be if you hadn't ever forgotten one before. This is similar to the end of Back to the Future. 

Now those potential outcomes are all well and good, but now lets think of the actual meeting. Let us look at ourselves now and then reflect on how we were back then. By nearly any account one, whether it is past or present, is better than the other. Would your younger self actually listen or be a punk? Would/Could you stand talking to your younger self? This is what would make changing one's own timeline a pain in the butt.



Just Remember: If you aren't happy with how your life is now, change it now. Don't focus on how something several years ago may have impacted your current mood.


-Future_Man_3000


P.S. - If you have any questions you want answered, feel free to contact me by email: futureman3000@yahoo.com

The Golden Bottlecap

There is this grocery store that I normally go to that has some sort of contest every year, sometimes two. Earlier in the year they had football "tickets" and the idea was that if you bought certain things you would get those "tickets." the tickets were scratch off and if you won the scratch off, you earned the coupon on the bottom. I'm still unsure why that was the case, I cheated and used the bottom every time. It's not like it mattered at all since the coupons were for food that I would never buy. I mean honestly, who wants to get a pizza with no flavor and the consistency of cardboard? Anyway, after that time I told myself that I wouldn't join in on the grocery contests.

They just had another one and it is one of those standard Monopoly board game based contests, which are even worse. Here are game pieces for buying food. The game pieces come with coupons so you can buy more food to get more game pieces. Essentially, it's a vicious cycle because someone could buy a couple hundred bucks worth of food and still fall short of having enough coupons to win a $10 gift certificate to the same store.



So after each of these contests, and we still haven't won anything, we ask ourselves Why do we participate if we know it's a ploy? The answer is simple enough: The American Dream. We want to have more than we have right now. It doesn't matter if it's the form of that house in the suburbs or a gift card that allows us to pay for groceries for the next two months, we want it. Some view it as our addiction to materialism, but sometimes it's more than that. Sometimes it's freedom to be able to do more than what we can at the moment. I'm not saying that buying a Ducati simply to get women is akin to winning a large sum of cash to continue living. The two are similar in being the American Dream, but to different ends.

Just Remember:Winning would be amazing, but those are some pretty long odds in this situation. Be realistic and put the six bags of pizza rolls back.




-Future_Man_3000


P.S. - If you have any questions you want answered, feel free to contact me by email: futureman3000@yahoo.com

Victories in Gaming

 Sometime ago, all my friends kept going on and on about this game called Minecraft, a sandbox game where you can build practically anything from nothing. I decided to give it a try and have been a little hooked on it for a few months now; however, I only play the free version. When I'm feeling bored or have a need to build something silly, I go to a specific server and do so. Earlier today I went into a favorite server of mine and built a sphinx on top of an exposed underground cavern filled with water. It was rather impressive, though I am super bias. After finishing that, I decided to make a giant sign next to it that would read "THE PHARAOH'S POOL" except that every time I got even halfway through building it this guy would come and destroy the sign.

I get that it is a game and that people can troll whenever they want, but I try not to be a troll. That's rule number one for me in gaming. I simply rebuilt in response to the destruction. The troll returned and destroyed the sign along with part of the sphinx. Using what I learned in elementary school, I walked way. I trekked half of the desert map before returning, rebuilding once doing so. The troll returned before I even was halfway through repairing the damage. I got so pissed I tried finding an admin to get rid of him, but none were around. Again, I traversed the map to be rid of this troll. When I returned I found he was gone again, leaving my home in shambles.

Now I tend to follow the NO-TROLLING rule as closely as possible, but at this point I threw it out the window. I looked up a method on how to transport my character to where the troll was tore his rather intricate house apart. As I ran off into landscape while cheering, I realized that I broke my only rule and how I felt like a jerk afterward. Sometimes we have problems in our lives where we have to deal with annoyingly aggressive people, but we have to push through them.



Just Remember: Sometimes we lose our cool, but we have to reign it in and try to stick to our self-imposed rules.




-Future_Man_3000


P.S. - If you have any questions you want answered, feel free to contact me by email: futureman3000@yahoo.com 

Leaving Your Mark

A dear friend of mine told me a while back that his greatest fear is not being remembered. I find this is interesting because neither of us are famous or super amazing to the point that we could be famous so his logic makes sense. Let us look at the facts: I'm a writer that may or may not be doomed to obscurity if I'm not interesting enough and my friend works in a store. I agree that we probably won't be C.S. Lewis, John Belushi, or Nikola Tesla. This is normally where people go along saying crap like you will be remembered through your family and friends or something like that. That statement is good and all, but think of the flip side of it. If either of us were to become famous then people would try to find something wrong with us if we were living or dead.

John Belushi was a great actor and comedian, but there was an equal focus on his addictions. Nikola Tesla was an absolute genius, but people also focused on his craziness. Even in his life time, Edison tried to discredit Tesla for having major issues with minor things A lot of the things we use today were created by Tesla and we still talk about his faults. C.S. Lewis (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) gave the world the wonderful tale of Alice in Wonderland, but anytime I talk about him with colleagues I find that they only focus on Lewis's pedophilia. 


It seems there are a few ways to be famous while not having people focus on your faults:

A Pharaoh to Remember

-The Weird Al Method - Be an amazing person that never does anything wrong and is famous. (Of course, the freaking impossible way.)
-The Bjork/Gaga/Minaj Method - Be amazingly crazy in the name of art.
-The Robert Downy Jr. Method - Own up to your faults. Admitting the problem and pushing past it is a great way too.
-The Question Method - Do something great and sever any connection to it.
-The Bender Method - Enslave a bunch of people and force them to build an outrageously large monument to yourself.



Just Remember: Being remembered isn't all it's cracked up to be. People either remember everything or interpret what they don't understand.





-Future_Man_3000


P.S. - If you have any questions you want answered, feel free to contact me by email: futureman3000@yahoo.com