Summary

The author reflects on the allure of different time periods, weighing the perks and detriments of past, present, and future life, ultimately advocating for integrating the best aspects of each into the present.

Abstract

The article delves into the author's contemplations on time, influenced by their interest in cosmology and the relative nature of time in the universe. It touches on the peculiarities of the present moment and the unique challenges and advancements of contemporary life, including technology, climate change, and societal issues. The author expresses a longing for a simpler life reminiscent of the past but acknowledges the hardships and inequalities that were prevalent in earlier times, particularly for women. The present is critiqued for its ongoing struggles with equality and justice across various demographics. Looking to the future, the author is both hopeful and apprehensive about the potential for both utopian and dystopian outcomes, with a personal fascination for space exploration. Despite the romanticization of past and future, the author concludes that striving to blend the appealing aspects of all time periods into the present is a worthy endeavor.

Opinions

The author has a fascination with the concept of time and its relativity in the context of space-time.
There is a romanticized view of simpler living from the past, yet the author recognizes the historical inequalities and hardships, especially for women.
The present is acknowledged for its technological advancements but also criticized for its failure to achieve gender equality and social justice.
The future holds both hope and fear, with the potential for significant space exploration tempered by realistic concerns about the challenges of space travel.
The author believes in the possibility of creating an ideal reality by combining the best elements of past, present, and future within the current era.
Despite the imperfections of each time period, the author sees value in working towards a better present by learning from history and envisioning a better future.

9/28/2022 REFRESH THE SOUL 30-DAY WRITING CHALLENGE

Which Time Period To Live In?

Perks and detriments in all, which is best?

I catch myself marveling at the idea of time quite often.

As someone interested in astronomy and cosmology, I know that time is actually a part of space-time and, therefore, time is relative. We don’t see its relative effects as part of our daily lives, but if we were traveling at or near the speed of light, time would get weird for everyone. Travelers would age slower than people who stay “on the planet.” It’s a weird concept that is explored in many sci-fi works. We also see its effects in places of extremely high gravity, such as black holes where matter and time for said matter can get “spaghettified” (a technical term) as they are sucked into the black hole.

In my daily life, I also catch myself thinking about the weirdness of “the present”. Every moment is the present, but it’s quickly the past, and the future will soon be the present. And the fact that I am living at this exact moment in time. Not in the ancient human past. I overlap with my grandparents’ and parents’ time, or more accurately, they overlap with mine. I live in a time of cars and computers and smartphones and social media. But I’ve also seen the slow/ not-so-slow evolution of climate change. I’ve seen wars around the world even though they weren’t “World Wars” through the aid of media and technology and thankfully never actually experienced it. I lived through a pandemic and now live in a “post-pandemic” world.

The future is full of both hope and fear. Humans are scheduled to go back to the moon in the next few years and even onto Mars in the next twenty. How will the current conflicts abroad and domestic play out? Will they open a better world or a worse one? Or just a different one? How will climate change progress throughout the rest of my life? Will our human ingenuity and knowledge of science combat it enough? Will we see another pandemic? Will our response be better than last time?

I love reading books and being immersed in worlds and realities other than my own. Being flung to the past in historical fiction or even historical nonfiction to see how our ancestors lived in simpler but still scary times. Being flung to the future in sci-fi to see the beauty and often darkness of humanity’s ingenuity come to fruition. Being flung into weird fantastical worlds that take elements of our past, present, and even future but add something new, something magical, something dark, or a path not taken.

And so, the question has been brought to me before, and here it is again: If given the choice, which time period (past, present, or future) would you like to live in and why?

Each has its own perks and detriments, known and unknown.

Lately, I’ve been longing for a simpler life. Having a cabin with my own garden that feeds us. Maybe trading with others for other items like flour, meat, and spare parts. Or trading for services. A world where things go a little slower and aren’t so connected to everyone else around the world. Instead, we would focus on ourselves and our community. I’ve joked about the appeal of cult life of escaping the reality of today and instead working with others to live off the land and grow together. If only they didn’t have a tendency to be so manipulative and dangerous, of drinking the Kool-aid and sacrificing the masses for the head guy.

I have a nostalgia for the past, but I know better. The past was hard in different ways, deadly in different ways. And as a woman, I know that life would be even more difficult. I would be giving up many of my rights to live in the past.

The present isn’t perfect for women either. We still don’t receive the same pay as men. We still are seen overwhelmingly as mothers and future mothers as opposed to equal partners, equal people. Being a working mother is still amazingly difficult as society hasn’t adapted to make it easier for women to be in the workplace (and it is still overwhelmingly the women who take on the childcare and housework in addition to having full-time jobs). We still are seen as objects and treated as such in different ways, to different extremes. Violence and abuse against women exist in many forms and are often overlooked in society, brushed under the carpet.

And I know that this is not just true for women. Many different people in our society are discriminated against and treated as less than. People of all genders, races, ethnicities, religions, cultures, and abilities are abused in various ways. And while progress has been made, we are not at equality yet. Rights that have been granted in the past have been chipped away at and taken away. A step forward and a step back, not always immediately, but still there.

The future is full of possibility, of romantic idealism, and terrifying dystopia. I imagine neither will be completely true. There will be elements of both. It’s unrealistic to think there won’t be any conflict in the future, that everyone will hold hands and sing kumbaya with everyone exactly equal in all ways. But I also doubt a post-apocalyptic dystopia with all bad things all the time. Even in a post-apocalyptic world, there would be some good times, some happy times. The scales would just be different. Just like people in the ancient past had happy times, too, even if they were living during terrible times.

I think the biggest appeal of the future for me would be traveling in space. To discover new worlds. To live in space. To make new discoveries about ourselves and live in space. But as an astronomy nerd, I also know the issues with space travel as we currently understand it. I know the vast distances of space between objects that even travel at light speed would be slow to get to other planets taking years, decades, even centuries. I also know the myriad dangers of space: microparticles that can cause damage to your spacecraft, solar radiation, running out of supplies, having an emergency with no one who can fix the problem, and communication delays, to name a few.

We can romanticize the past and the future, but each has its problems, just like the present. We can hope for simpler times, and we can hope for futuristic innovations that will solve our current problems, but nothing will be perfect as we imagine.

But here’s the thing. We can work on having what we love about the past and the future here in the present. We can find ways to have simpler lives and better technology to help us. We can work on fighting the injustices that exist. It won’t be perfect. It never is. But we can work on creating our own ideal reality, even if it is just for us.

I think that’s something worth dreaming about and fighting for.

This is my twenty-eighth entry in the Refresh The Soul 30-Day Writing Challenge for September: If given the choice, which time period (past, present, or future) would you like to live in and why?

Thank you for joining me, and thank you Nancy Blackman for this lovely challenge and publication.