I’m going to confess immediately to being a big fan of Dr Who. I’m very open to being entertained by anything childish, and the Doctor certainly does that for me. I had a conversation with my housemate a few days ago, one of those late night small talk type exchanges in which you chew over hypothetical questions. He asked me where in time I would go if I could climb into the Tardis and be whisked away.
Where in history?
I started by thinking about history generally, by time period. I thought it would be pretty cool to go to Medieval times. I studied Middle English when I was an undergraduate and everything about that time fascinated me. Particularly as most of the history that’s written is from a very elite perspective. I would like to find out what it was really like for the silent majority.
Where in my past?
Medieval time was the easy answer of course. What sprang to mind immediately was the thought of going backwards in my own timeline. How would it have impacted me if I could have changed or erased a part of my own story? I thought of important moments, the ones that stick with me even though I don’t want them to. And I thought of the butterfly effect; if I erased one of those, would I have had the same timeline to follow? If wiping out something horrible would, for instance, mean I never got to meet my wife, I wouldn’t even consider it.
But it did get me to wondering where I would be right now and how my life would have differed had I not been abused as a child. I guess that will be another blog post for when I have more time…
What about the future?
It never crossed my mind that I might want to travel into the future. Maybe that’s because the default position of a depressed person is to dwell on the past. I usually can’t manage thinking beyond the end of today, or sometimes the end of each hour, so years ahead is mind-blowing. I am scared of all that time stretching out. It feels like a long time to wait to die. I guess I have to keep reminding myself that there is a lot of good stuff that might fill the gap.
I’d love your thoughts on this. Where would you go? And why?
Photo: Joel Penner, Creative Commons.
blackspotsite 
Probably to the day my mother was born, I think it would be cool to see how it was when my mom was a child. See what my grandparents where like as a mother and father.
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Yeah that would be really interesting. I know my grandparents now are totally different people to when my parents were little. It would also be cool to see how they lived.
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Agreed!
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Doctor Who fans unite! I just want to say, I really appreciate your candor, especially in the section where you talk about going to the future. Great response, and one that many folks can identify with.
Since I’m a huge history lover, I find it overwhelming to be given, even hypothetically, the vast length of time and a free pass at time travel. I think I would also hazard a visit to the Middle Ages, but mainly, I’d want to go to Florence at the height of the Renaissance, or even the early, burgeoning years of the humanist movement.
Then I would make a beeline for ol’ Leonardo’s house.
Because I’m shady as hell.
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Thank you for the compliment. Yeaah renaissance would be awesome! It would in reality be almost impossible to choose. I think my head would probably explode.
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In Medieval times there were no proper sewers so people used to empty their toilets into the street every morning. There were no blogs or sci-fi TV but there was slavery and burning witches. Hmm..
I’ve written a blog post in answer to your question here https://noimnotok.wordpress.com/2016/02/19/time-travel-where-would-you-go/
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Haha yeah I know but it would be an adventure wouldn’t it? I suppose I would have a tough time trying to write there. And I bet the WiFi coverage was terrible.
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Some of the costumes look like fun
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Yeah, I suppose you could say that about most periods up until the last century. Not sure I’d want to have to squeeze into a corset though. I’d probably panic and pass out.
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I cringed at ‘corset’. They are torture devices, I’m sure (if historical accounts of the resulting organ damage is any indication).
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