Hi! @drceeyou here. This is my entry for the hive learners weekly contest. I am to talk about what I am going to do if I had the opportunity to go to the past. But the only caveat is that I only get to spend 10 minutes.
When I saw the prompt I thought it would be easy to come up with something to write about. After all, I have been fascinated by time travel for a while now. But the more I thought about what to write the more lost I felt. There is so much about the past I cant remember. Maybe I should say I chose not to remember. It's like when I think of the past, there is a large void with pockets of memory here and there which I am not sure are accurate representations or just my brain compensating.
I guess the past is like that because I have tried to train myself to move on with lightening speed. I have been hurt exceedingly, but I have developed a way of moving forward very quickly, it's like nothing happened.
Time travel
Recently I have been seeing movies that have time travel as their theme. I'll mention 2. The first one was titled "timeless" and the 2nd "DC legends of tomorrow" Both of them are fascinating movies to see. Of course, it's all sci-fi, reality for the screens. So I don't believe it, at least not everything. But these movies got me thinking. I remember a scene from "DC legends of tomorrow" in which changing just one scene from a childhood sitcom completely altered the life of a man and changed the outlook of the future, it was catastrophic.
It has made me realize that who we are today could a consequence of small decisions and small changes to our taste, usually compounding on a daily basis. There are also other events that have little consequence and can be altered in any way without changing the whole course of history or a person's life. I thought about it. What if the apple didn't fall on Isaac Newton's head on that day he discovered gravity? There is no actual way of knowing what the consequence would be today, you would have to be a super computer that is extremely efficient in computing probability.
The effect could be for the better, or it could be for the worse. And there is no way to know for sure. That is why many people believe that instead of seeking to invent time travel and change the past, we should all try to make sensible decisions today so that we could at least, positively affect the outcome of our future. But do I hold such a belief?
What would I do with 10 minutes in the past?
10 minutes in the past means that I go with my current knowledge and skill. If I had the opportunity to go and spend 10 minutes in the past, I would like to spend it in a past that matters, one that could change the entire course of my life. I know that by the time I am done, the people I know now would be strangers to me, some people who are strangers to me would probably be my best buddies, but I think I would like to take a chance on that adventure.
So where would I go?
I would go to the time I was filling the form to choose what course I would be studying in the university, it is called the "JAMB form". I remember that before that day I was highly conflicted as to which course would be of most benefit to me. I was really good at physics and mathematics, so a lot of folks suggested I do something around engineering. But the question was which of the engineering disciplines was I going to be effective in? I was good in biology, fairly good in chemistry, at least I was able to get a B, so some other people suggested I become a doctor.
So when the day came for me to choose, I was in a dilemma. Medicine or Engineering. I finally decided to sit with medicine. It seemed straight forward. It didn't seem to have so many branches like engineering. I didn't want to start thinking about which kind of engineering I was going to do.
Changing the entire course of my life
So I would spend that 10 minutes convincing my younger self that it is a lot better to follow computer science as a passion. My knowledge of the world now and where it is headed to would be an advantage that I would use to convince myself. I know that I can be stubborn and if I don't have enough facts, my younger self would not take me seriously. So I would spend those 10 minutes convincing myself that the world is changing in such a way that my better area of impact in the world would be in computer science, learning about technology and how it can change lives.
That would probably mean that I would change my school of choice. That would mean that I would have never become a doctor. I would have never met my friends I have now. I would never have met my teachers. Thinking about it now, it getting really scary. It would also mean that I would have a new life completely. I would have new friends. I would probably have encountered Hive earlier. It is like walking in completely uncharted territory.
Now that I think about it, I don't know if that is really what I want to do. I just hope that it is reversible and that I could go and reconvince myself to choose medicine, if things go sideways.
Thanks for reading.
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