Hardly a week goes by without hearing the phrase, “If only I could go back in time…” We all know it isn’t possible. I say this as an aspiring science fiction writer; I don’t believe it will ever be possible. My genre relies on the ability to fold or distort space and time. My issue with this is that you cannot bend or fold that which does not exist.
Those things that are infinite are so because they are intangible…they don’t exist.
God. God is everywhere, and nowhere. God is intangible; we must have “faith” in him. The reason he/she is everywhere is that there is no physical manifestation of God. We cannot measure his weight, his height, or see him. He is everything because he is intangible.
Space. Space is a vacuum. We cannot measure it, weigh it, see it, smell it, touch it, or even pack it into a container. If you suck everything out of a container, you have nothing, a vacuum…you have space. Space is full of things, suns, planets, comets, matter, but because space doesn’t exist, it can go on forever. Its lack of existence allows it to be infinite.
Time. We invented it. It is a measure of the passage of our lives. If we take away the sun, the moon, and our clocks, we quickly lose track of it. It has no beginning and no end. This one will get plenty of argument, but the movement of planets, the rising of the sun, and the destruction of life is not a measure of time, but a measure of existence. We created time to put markers on that measure. We created time to make sense of the ordered passage of events. Maybe also with the hopes of one day controlling it.
Since time does not exist, we cannot travel it. There is no yesterday, there is no tomorrow, there is only now…now…now…now. Yesterday is only memories, and regrets, while tomorrow is only a dream, plans, hopes, or fears. The only thing that is for sure is the moment. Our dreams make us wish we could travel forward to the future we hope for, dream for, plan for. Wishing we could go back is only dreaming the impossible dream.
Since we cannot travel backwards, or leap forward, it best to look towards the future, plan for tomorrow, dream of a better life, and make changes that will prevent us from repeating yesterday’s mistakes. There are many mistakes lingering in my past. Probably many more regrets, but wishing I could fix the past made me forget the future. Now I live in the moment, and prepare for tomorrow.
The closest we can come to traveling along life’s steady passage of existence, what we call time, is to look forward, with only the occasional glance back.
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