You know the smile. It's the smile the man with the over-whitened teeth, over-ironed slacks, over-combed hair, and yet-still-not-quite-correctly-tied-tie gives you as he runs your credit report at the car lot. It's the smile the referee gives as he throws a yellow flag although three other referees have already thrown theirs. It's the smile the sadistic executioner flashes as he pulls the lever at the gallows, the switch at the electric chair, or pushes the plunger on the needle. It's the smile that screams, "This is my favorite part of the job." That's the smile that Mister Fib always gives as he asks the question, "Future or past?"
They say (and by they I mean all the meaningless hacks who just repeat other inane proverbs without thinking about how little sense they make) that you can't judge another person until you've walked a mile in aforementioned person's shoes and by that logic I guess I can't accurately predict the questions I might ask (nor the glee I might gain from asking them) if I were the owner/operator of a time machine. I think, just based on the pure joy on the face of Mister Fib, that I would have to ask, at least once, "Past or future?"
That's the conundrum we all face when we decide on time travel. Certainly there are other things to consider- alternate time lines, more knowledge than our modern minds can handle, the Grandfather Paradox, and the like, but the most basic question we have to answer, the One or the Zero, to reduce things to their most basic form always remains the same: "Future or past?"
I think we all fall into two categories or, though it strains the mind to even conjecture, possibly three. In category One-A fall all the people who would time travel merely to observe. These are the people who want to see Abraham Lincoln shot, want to see Columbus land in Hispaniola, want to see King Arthur pull Excalibur from the stone (that happened, right?) and want to see the crab people rule a barren Earth presided over by a giant sun. Let us ignore these lame-asses and focus on the two groups that matter, One-B and Two. Group One-B are also interested in the past, but they are the Past Changers. While that title doesn't quite roll off of the tongue there is none that better describes the desires of this subset. These are the people that would go back and kill a youthful Adolf Hitler, or wait for Lee Harvey Oswald in the book depository (though how they could also be on the grassy knoll at the same time remains to be seen), or do something as simple and ingenious as buy stock in Apple in 1980something. While I both understand and sympathize with this position, it is the wrong one.
Group Two is my group. Count me in with the futurists. I want to know what are the results of the experiments we are now conducting, not what are the results of the experiment our parents and grandparents participated in. I want to know where and when and how I die - not so I can change it but so I can fully enjoy it. I want to know where the world will stand in 2050 - what countries will be super powers, what countries will no longer exist, whether we'll be on the moon or the moon will be on us, whether we'll have flying cars or have run out of oil or will be radioactive half-humans who continue to dance in a world without music (but with crab people!).
The past is over and done with. I have many regrets, and there are a few things I would love to get another swing at. If I could place the mind I now possess in my body at age 8, or 15, or 19, or 23, there is no doubt I would make different, and better choices. These choices would give me different opportunities, some better and some worse than the ones I was presented with. I would make different choices based on those opportunities and therefore end up in a different place than I am now. Perhaps it would be better, perhaps it would be worse. However, none of those things happened. I can look at the past and trace the exact path that brought me to where I am today. I can, if we want to get mushy, pinpoint the exact moment I fell in love and follow that bright red pulsing lifeline over the course of nine years to the place where it has led me today. To this very basement, in this very pair of pants, with this very cat in my lap, with this very wife and this very son busying themselves above my head. I can see how it has affected many of my decisions, both for the better and the worse. I can see how it has changed me, both for the better and for the worse. If I could go back in the past would I change any of it? No, I wouldn't, and I suppose that is a testament to the fact that I feel that in the present I am a place of happiness, or at least in a place where I can achieve happiness. It doesn't mean I'm in a place of perfection, it just means that I've done good enough in life's casino that I'm not comfortable rolling the dice and seeing how they'd turn up on the second try.
But oh! the future! That is what really matters. I'm still at the beginning of an only-just-unfolding story. Will I get divorced at age 55 and start dating one of my son's friends? Will I be a grizzled outlaw fending for my life as a pick my way through a post-apocalyptic landscape? Will I invest my money in something that seems reasonable and ends up being a horrific ponzi scheme that bankrupts my family as I lose everything I've worked to save? Will I leave a bar a little too tipsy and cause an accident that kills a family of three? Will I work hard, treat those around me with love, and one day sit on a porch in the mountains smoking a pipe and eating an apple that grew on a tree in my own property with my arm around my wife of 45 years? How will the things I am doing today affect my tomorrow? When will I know if the struggles were worth it?
Here's what I told Mr. Fib, as I climbed into his poorly modified go-kart that he claimed was a time machine. I told him, "Count me in with the futurists, because it's only the future that will tell us whether the present was worth a damn."
