Here’s Why I Wouldn’t Change Anything Even If I Could
But what use would that be?
‘I wish I could turn back the clock and bring the wheels of time to a stop. But what use would that be?’
If I were to ask you, what is ‘Time’, then what would your answer be? Would you describe time to be a quantity of measurement which we have developed to keep our schedules in check? Or would you describe time to be an entity to be an energy of sorts that keeps the world in order? Or would you simply turn to me and say that time is time, it’s a sentence in itself and needs no other nouns or adjectives to support it. Whatever you may think time to be, we all agree to the fact that lost time cannot be made up for and that is why it is so valuable to every individual.
However, if I were to tell you that you could go back in this mysterious realm of time and could alter the events as we know it, would you risk to take the plunge and change anything? Or would you be content in the way that history has panned out and the way that everything has fit together like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle? To put you in a better position of taking that call, I have provided various arguments that will churn your mind and will force you to implore into the things that you already know and question their righteousness!
Turn back the pages of history to the times of the ‘Dark Ages’- a period in time that witnessed the stagnation of human development. A speck in the fabric of time where cruelty and torture were widespread-a drought of sorts experienced in terms of the development of sciences, arts, and in totality, of the human mind and human cognition. However, let us keep in mind what emerged from this period of repression: an era of ‘rediscovery’ and ‘awakening’ of the human spirit, historians terming this as the ‘Renaissance’. A time wherein practices like architecture and trade flourished and sciences like philosophy, botany, and literature proved to be landmarks in human reasoning.
Have we ever wondered why this happens? Why do we use phrases like, ‘only after the darkness comes the light’? Maybe it is based on our experiences that we have come to deduce these phrases and maybe it is how we respond to various situations that we have come to thinking along these lines?
We travel to a more recent of time in human civilization, the 1900’s- an era that saw the invention of various commodities like a vacuum cleaner, air conditioning, automated tea maker, electrocardiogram, radar, plastic, radio broadcasting, and the electric washing machine, however, it is infamously remembered to be a page in human civilization which was blackened by the gruesome World Wars. The extensive use of armaments during these times have taught us valuable lessons, be it in failure too: the lack of discretion exercised by countries where methodologies of world peace and harmony could have been exercised. The failure of the ‘League Of Nations’ led to the development of the existing ‘United Nations’ organizations whose purpose is to maintain world peace and order. These incidents in history are not fictitious writings of an author, these are events that have actually occurred and have changed the course of the world as we know it- for the better or worse. The unjust ‘Treaty Of Versailles’ imposed harsh terms on Germany which resulted in the feeling of resentment, ultimately leading to the Second World War.
Did we learn important lessons from the Second World War?
Did we understand the implications that the use of atomic weapons has on human life and how adversely the generations that are to follow are affected? If not, I would urge you to visit the memorials at Hiroshima: the mass destruction and brutalities that were inflicted by us upon our own kind are on open display. The ghastly tragedies of that unfaithful day remain preserved to this day, to remind us as a society, to what extent we can go in order to achieve power and supremacy over our fellow compatriots! One will surely be moved to a great extent and will then resonate with the thinking I have come to adopt.
Concepts of ‘false realities’ would emerge as a consequence to which, the physical relevance of human interactions would now be lost. As in the current scenario, the onset of the virtual era has diminished human interactions, and a further ability to change the algorithms followed to account for a particular event, would simply not be beneficial to the civilization. It is for a certain reason that water flows from a higher level to a lower level and it is for the same reason that time only progresses in a forward direction- to prevent the occurrence of paradoxes and to allow for the smooth functioning of the human civilization.
The theory of memories and events being connected together in a web-like structure is a reality, just like the way the laws of nature work on a fundamental level. Quantum mechanics states a principle known as ‘quantum entanglement’, which states that the change in the state of any properties in an electron will be reflected on its counterpart, wherever it may be in the universe.
Much in the same way is with our lives. Any change in the events that have already occurred will affect the ones that are to follow and judging by today’s technological advancements, I am sure that many a person would not want to alter the course of history. Disrupting the chain of events that are to follow would cause unprecedented chaos, the outcome of which remains a variable- more like the ‘Domino Effect’ which will lead to a set of situations completely different from the ones existing today or from the ones which we have experienced.
Time if was multidirectional would lead to a sense of controlling every outcome in individuals and thus would lead to their slacking off- whose practice would lead to the deterioration of human civilization. The criticality of decisions that we make would now be lost since we would wait for the outcome of our decision: if negative, we would go back into the fabric of time and would conveniently change the course of events to our liking. The constant fear of being wrong and one being able to do nothing about it, will not exist and thus the driving force which pushes an individual to become the best version of himself will be lost. Actions should have consequences to which you are accountable for- these being necessary for self-development and thereby the progress of the civilization as a whole.
If given an opportunity, I would love to relive the memories and moments that I had spent with my grandmother, who has aboded the realms of heaven and am sure that I speak on behalf of most of my companions. However, being selfish in this regard and tending to one’s personal interests will not benefit society, rather it will lead to its stagnation.
As the common adage goes, ‘With great power comes even greater responsibility’ and to handle the infinite variables that are linked with human nature, will be impossible to account for by a physical being. To develop a level of selflessness that demands no desires and self-interests, in my opinion, is a feat that can be assumed by few and most certainly not by me.
Many centuries have passed and many men have tried valiantly to decipher and fathom the principles of time and have failed. Why is the phenomenon of time such a complex proposition yet on face value seems to be a trivial commodity? Why do we always say that time is not in our favor and that we need to compete with it in order to succeed? Can we not imagine a world wherein humans and the phenomena of time exist coherently so as to produce peace and harmony in the world? Perhaps the unidirectional nature of the hands of the clock is designed for the betterment of our race? Perhaps our creator knew that we as a society will become one where, methodologies of procrastination and delay would be dominant? These are the questions I ask from you my companions, and urge you to implore within yourselves that whether all that you know is based on fact and whether you should believe it because most of the common folk do.
When I now ponder in my musing, whether, I wish I could turn back the clock and bring the wheels of time to a stop, ‘probably not’ is what I now say.
