Change, Changing, Changed

There is an entire genre of Science Fiction dedicated to time travel. It often features the consequences of inadvertently or deliberately altering the past. I’ve always considered this “What if?” approach fun but overly contrived. It exposes a persnickety desire to play with the past. Of course, we all do it. “If I had only done this, not that” is a favorite game. But those who mine the past for our scribblings have little regard for what happened. We are too busy exploring an alternative take on something.

In our retelling, we have the opportunity to be the GOAT ( greatest of all time) in some particular area we love rather than just another mediocre scribbler. Of course, we have great insight into motivations, history, and reactions. After all, we are writing the stuff, aren’t we?

But of course, after you put the pen down, stop typing on the keyboard, or imagine a world of “If,” you are left with the fact that you aren’t allowed any redos or takeovers. You are stuck with your actions and the consequences of your actions. Now, some of us are pros when it comes to avoiding consequences. But sooner or later, something tends to catch up with us. I hear a quiet chorus of karma out there. So, we should be encouraged to recall our errors in detail when cornered. If smart, we spend less time cogitating on changing our past and seek to change our future instead.

Not all of us are smart, but most of us can learn from experience. And then there are the incorrigible. Learn from the incorrigible. They may bristle at you, but those bristles are theirs to bear encounter after lousy encounter. We can’t change the past, but we can learn from it and change the present and future.