How to construct a Time Machine? Anybody? Because I could surely need one…and I wouldn`t even use it to fool around with the Grand Scheme of things, like changing the history of humanity to prevent WWII or to save the Eloys from the Morlocks. Because, although those might all be very honorable motifs to build a time machine, I would already be busy enough correcting my own flaws, faults and mistakes. I mean, I would really appreciate Dr. Emmert Brown crashing the famous DeLorean into my front yard and telling me how I am going down the wrong way on the wrong timeline right now, so we better pack it up and go back in time to set things straight. But then again, one of Doc Browns main principles has always been to never fool around with the past. Still it worked pretty well for Mr. Marty McFly: Getting his dad to man-up, getting his family a nice new house and getting himself an awesome new ride while at the same time keeping his gorgeous girlfriend. Therefore, I think I too deserve a fair shot. But I guess that if the Doc would be up for something like that, he`d also have a loooong list of clients waiting in line for his services, as I know I am by far not the only one who would be happy to change some of his past wrongs. There clearly is a market here.
So I must wonder why we are able to travel through space, at an altitude of 10 000 meters, while watching a movie and having a full dinner course (although that´s a point where there`s still some room for improvement), all at the speed of 1000 km/h, but we are not even close to making a journey through time. From all I `ve heard there are not even hints about experiments going on, or some minor breakthroughs, like somebody slipping a note through time to tell the guys at NASA that they might wanna take a second look at their calculations for the Mars Climate Orbiter before launching that thing into space. Because that`s a $125 million they won`t get back. Or somebody telling the producers of Adam Sandler`s “Jack & Jill” that they might wanna reconsider making this movie. Because that`s 10 Golden Raspberries they can`t give back.
Or somebody to slip me a note that drinking more than one of those specially brewed beers at that fateful evening in October is just not a good idea. Which brings me to a thought that kind of discourages me. Because on that particular event (and after drinking way more than the afore mentioned amount of “one” beer) my body and me had to pay the bitter prize for a bad call: the roughest night (plus morning and evening of the following day), the headache, the nausea, the cold and the haunting feeling of remorse. And all I could do was lay down and endure. After millions of years of evolution, nature has not equipped us with any faculty to undo our last steps. No “ctrl-Z” in this game. Even if it`s something simple as cancelling that last round of drinks. And if mother nature couldn`t figure it out during the greatest experiment of all time (i.e. evolution), how could we ever hope to succeed in this venture? Of course, one could cite the fact that we have come up with a lot of solutions for a lot of things nature didn`t provide for us in the first place, like long distance-communication or wet toilet tissue; still even we have been experimenting now for some time and cannot show up with anything in that field. So maybe there is no solution here? Maybe there`s no possible way for time travelling at all? Maybe we are meant to suffer for our wrongs, maybe we are meant to endure, maybe sometimes all that is left for us to do is to lay down and just wait until the storm has passed?
Maybe there`s a lesson here. The lesson that there are few lessons without mistakes. It`s making mistakes what also makes us human; and it`s overcoming and learning from these mistakes what can make us great at what we do. After all, every great artist, entrepreneur or scientist has failed innumerable times before moving on to success. And after all, even Marty McFly has to realize that messing around with timelines can lead to such inconceivable consequences as Biff shagging his mum (not to forget killing his dad in advance). So yeah, there`s also something good in our inability to change time.
But wouldn`t it still be a great thing to do, if we could learn the lesson, then restart and try again? Surely. Wouldn`t it still be a cool thing to do, if we could meet our ancestors, see ancient Egypt, have a flirty chat with Cleopatra (after all, with a skill like time travelling in your repertoire, here`s a date you could retry again and again…)? Hell Yeah, definitely. Isn`t there a chance that we can, in some future time? Maybe.
But until then, we are only travelling in one direction: Ever Forward.
And so the lesson is: fail, endure, learn, grow, be better.
Get up, try again and start to FAIL BETTER.
Get out there and be a singer, a musician, an entrepreneur, a creator, even though you`ve failed before. Because the lesson here also is to lose the fear of failure.
Get out there, play, win, lose, humiliate yourself, risk something, grab a heart and tell your crush that you would like to meet for a cup of coffee sometime, even though you`re afraid to be turned down. Because some mistakes are also worth making.
And sometimes there`s fun in failure. I, for my part, have personally never seen “Jack & Jill”. So as for me, I will stop writing now, I am gonna go down, lie on the couch and watch one of the supposedly worst movies of all times[3]. And I am gonna have a beer with that. But just one this time.
