Time’s the king of all men,

He is their parent, and he is their grave,

And gives them what he will, not what they crave.

-William Shakespeare, Pericles

Time travel – now that would be something?! To be able to go back and change a single mistake, take the road less traveled, turn left instead of right, to relive your life with all the knowledge and power that you know now. This scenario if used in the right way could end wars before they start, stop environmental destruction before it occurs, and even stop cancer before it spreads to the rest of your body. How fantastic, how wonderful this would be. Right? There are some physicist that think this might be possible at some point in the future. And to me that is a very scary thought. Humans in all our glory are still flawed. That’s what makes us human – Too emotional, too independent and even when we have the best of intentions there will be times that we are wrong. No, time travel, as in going back in time, is not for the human race.

But what if you could go forward in time, so to speak? Not to actually jump forward in time but to live a much longer life? Indefinite even. No expiration date? An open ended life span – immortality? I must admit that I become giddy at the thought. I cannot begin to imagine the amount of acquired knowledge that would be gained by living more than one life time. Start in one field of study, work on it for 25 to 30 years and then switch to another, and then repeat it. Work as a social worker, become a doctor, an engineer, an artist, then maybe an architect, and on and on indefinitely. The combining of knowledge from multi-fields of study in one individual would make issues and problems that seemed unsolvable a thing of the past. Solutions would be put forth that we cannot even think of now. We learn by making mistakes and we would have an infinite amount of time to make them.

Change the human life span to an open ended one and you change all of society. The question of whether or not there is a heaven or hell would be settled. If you never die of old age, well, the only heaven or hell is the one that you create yourself while living. The power of religion over the masses would dwindle. Over population would become a problem very quickly but this would cause a huge uptick in funding for the space program. Time to get us off the planet and eventually to the stars. In the mean time we would be forced to become much better stewards of the environment. The excesses and abuses of the past would not be tolerated. The Supreme Court’s old adage of appointed for life would become a thing of the past. Serve 10 years and then someone else is appointed? Having and raising children would no longer be the all-consuming life draining event that it can be now. You could have your kids and cake too so to speak. Eventually there would be a downturn in all military spending. When you realize that you could live a thousand years or more, then getting killed in some corporate military debacle does not become as appealing, as if it ever was. I could go on and on but you get the idea. And for those naysayers out there, yes there would be problems, some very serious, but to use a quote that has been attributed to multi different authors, including Plato, “Necessity is the mother of Invention.” We would find a way.

Well that is about all for me this week. It has been a little cold and snowy the last couple of days but that is Colorado in spring. The top picture is one I borrowed from the internet and the bottom two pictures are of the Poudre River as it flows through Fort Collins. Take care and see you out there.