i drive a 2012 chevy malibu, not a DeLorean

    Sometimes, and i know im not the only one, I get caught up with how things could have been different or changed.  Whether its a mistake or some neutral decision, was the other option better?  Whether its with school, sports, relationships, family, I always feel like there's always a nagging desire to turn back time and see if I could've done it better.  Could i have made my high school experience better just by doing a few things differently? 

    Time travel would be handy.

    or would it?

    Depends on how it works.  

    If its like Terminator or Looper, It wouldn't matter, I would just go back in time and set into motion events that were meant to happen in the reality I already live in.  The "Bootstrap paradox" stems from this.  At that point I don't truly have free will, as I am a prisoner to my future and whether I mess up or don't, isn't exactly my own choice.  

Seeing the future would have a similar effect.

    A time loop like Groundhog Day or Edge of Tomorrow seems like it would just suck.  If it takes as many tries to figure out the way to succeed as it did for Tom Cruise's character to figure out how to beat the aliens, then I don't think I'm meant to succeed.  I mean life does seem pretty repetitive, but that's all and well going to change.   Also Emily Blunt's character, who fell in love with him (in one day?) completely forgets the events (because they didn't happen) so he saved the world but he couldn't have it all.  

    If it's like the Marvel Universe (think Avengers: Endgame for a well known example), I would be creating a separate timeline by changing events.  So there will still be a version of me who "screwed up" as opposed to the me that didn't.  

    Traveling to the future seems inconsequential, but also pointless for fixing mistakes.  Unless its like the German show DARK, in which the future also affects the present.  But that world is terrible, depressing, filled with incest, and just overall not a great time - so i hope if time travel does exist it doesn't end up like that.  

    The ideal situation is like Back to the Future, a simple version where what you change in the past changes the future.  But you have to be careful, sure i could fix my problems, but I could also erase my existence (leading to the "Grandfather Paradox").  A small change could cause big ripples in any direction.

Sure I can wish certain things could have gone differently but they went this way for a reason.  If my dad

or mom had the power to fix a mistake or change an important decision after the fact - maybe I would never have existed!  

    Well the point is that time travel won't fix my problems.  In all the aforementioned stories, time travel actually creates more, other, difficult decisions - and there is still conflict and consequences and growth from those things for the characters (otherwise what kind of story would it be?)  Marty has to make sure his parents still get together; simply going back in time doesn't ensure that all the Infinity Stones are in possession; and what would you do if the only solution to fix the world was to get rid of the time travel you have (Dark and Edge of Tomorrow)?   

    A simple solution to problems never truly exists - because if you think it does it opens other problems up, but everything leads you to become who you are.  Siddartha couldn't have found enlightenment without gambling everything away.  Santiago couldn't have found his treasure without having a thief steal his money from the start.  If they were able to go back and fix those mistakes - what would they become?

    Its pointless to focus on if it could be better or worse - it just is!  I'm not Marty McFly, i'm a senior in high school living in the present with a lot of good things going for him, and i turned out that way through the way high school, and life, went.  I've learned that i just have to live with that - even though sometimes that belief can get swayed.   Regret is natural but not worse than potentially ending the world via the butterfly effect and you eating an orange in 2022 causes mass nuclear detonation that ends the world 2 years later.

10 years of books

1. V for Vendetta

A graphic novel by Alan Moore, who made Watchmen, which is one of my favorite things I've read.  Im honestly suprised i havent even read it yet - as a I find graphic novels/comic books easier to start so maybe I'll read this earlier on if i want to get into the groove of reading.  The book centers on an anarchist rebel in a dystopian society where a totalitarian regime rules.  The premise leads me to believe that Moore could tackle these ideas just as well as he did before.

 2. The Count of Monte Cristo 

  I know the story through movies and retelling, but i have never read the actual book.  It’s one of those books that people tend to reference when a story beat for some other form of media goes one way, and i although i understand it I don’t know if i can truly a appreciate.  From the author of the The Three Musketeers, this is a classic revenge/redemption story that I tend to enjoy and I must read. 

3. Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

Another book that I feel like is mind blowing that I haven’t read yet.  Sci-if is my favorite genre (and it isn’t even close), but it has a comedic twist that apparently satirizes the genre and focuses on the humor rather than the Sci-fi setting itself but ends up being more profound and thought provoking.  That description itself sounds like this book would be a major hit or miss for me but I have to try it at least, and who knows, maybe I’ll end up reading all of the books in the series.  

4. World War Z

I've watched the movie and played the game that are both based off of it, and have heard they are nothing like it.  I've also heard its the quintessential zombie apocalypse novel, split into various stories through the form of interviews.  I like dystopic stories - and zombies are cool too, so I gotta read it.  

5.  Dune 

Yeah I’ll admit the movies have severely influenced the decision for this to be on the list.  But i always had the urge to read the grand influential series of books that inspired countless Science fiction and space opera type stories.  I love things like Star Wars, why should I not read the novel that paved the way for it, even though I just recently delved into the story?

6. Hyperion

Well known for its world building, the first book in the series is something I’ve had my eye on.  It began as various stories the author told to his students verbally, and then became compiled into an intricate world of different plot lines that weave together.  It is complicated and all over the place, but it sounds so interesting - a book about seven individuals traveling to a mysterious planet.

7. Catch 22

A book about a Captain of an American bombardier stationed on an island and attempting stay alive.  It is dark and satirical and confronts the meaning of war.   It also coined such a popular term of the same name, so I want to read the origin of that term and understand it as Heller implemented it in his book. 

8.  Slaughterhouse Five 

The author, Kurt Vonneget, served in the Army and was a prisoner of war in Dresden during the bombings of the city in WWII.  In this novel he inserts his own experience into the fictional character of Billy Pilgrim which serves the purpose of his anti-war message, and supposedly there is a science fiction element to the historical fiction novel which sounds like an interesting melding of genres.

9.  Crime and Punishment

I have heard so much about this book, which follows a character who commits justifies committing a crime by musing that he could do great things if he isn’t poor anymore, but he struggles with his morality after the crime.  I know it is a difficult read, and I’m kind of averse to reading it, but with that premise it presents a setting in which I’ll be forced to confront some universal truths about human nature - so i dont know if I should read it now or later, but I eventually decided upon later in the ten years.   

10. Ender’s Game

Back when I read this book for the first time, it became my favorite for a while.   Despite the controversy around some of the author’s questionable views, I found the premise of this story really entertaining.  The main character is a kid who ends up leading a war effort in space against an alien species, but some of the themes in the book hit me harder than i expected.  When i read it i expected something fun and i was pleasantly surprised.  I am interested to see if my enjoyment of this book will hold up later in life.