TIME TRAVEL — SEPTEMBER 28 WRITING PROMPT
Time in a Bottle
If given the choice, which time period (past, present, or future) would you like to live in and why?
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While I enjoy reminiscing about the past, I wouldn’t want to live there. It’s static, unchanging — I can read about it in a book and enjoy it again and again through photos. But I can’t travel back in time.
If I could travel to the past, would changing something result in you and me not having a future at all? We all like to think we’d go back in time and kill Hitler before he grew up into an evil adult. I wouldn’t; I would first try to encourage his artistic ambitions. I would tell him that, with practice, he would be one of the greatest painters of the 20th century. So what if he never became that? The encouragement might distract him long enough he’d lose any opportunity to become a murderous dictator. Then again, it might not. I’m glad history doesn’t rest solely on my shoulders.
I’m happy in the present, and I try to be more observant so that I don’t blink and miss all that’s amazing about right now. We talk about living in the present moment, but we can never pin it down. The present is ephemeral and fleeting. The moment is over the minute I type these words. It slips from our grasp again before you reach the period at the end of this sentence you just read. Unless one of us drops dead, right this nanosecond, we have no choice but to live in the future.
Considering my intention to live as long as my grandmothers — to my mid-90s, at least — I’d have to say that I’d most like to live in the future.
The alternative is too awful to contemplate.
Oh! Hello. Welcome to the future. I’m glad you chose to come along and meet me here!
This is Day #28 of the 30-Day Writing Challenge by Nancy Blackman for Refresh the Soul. Previous days’ posts:
