Would you rather go back into the past or go into the future?

[je]

I didn't see anything sort of like this.

When I say, "go into the future," I mean farther than the future that is happening at this moment...

Please don't just give an answer, but give some reasons as well.

[Dorothy]

Why would I wanna go into the past?  I was a pathetic, angry, insecured person then.  Transition has opened up my horizons, Im happy, I respect myself, I like who I am & now I only look into the future.  Going backwards is only for losers & Im not one of them.

[sd]

Are we talking our personal past and future or the past and future in general?

If you mean just I my lifetime, the future. I agree with Pia, the past sucked, the whole reason I am here is to make my future better.


If we are talking in all of history though...
Barring G.I.D., I would have loved to have lived during the 40's, 50's and 60's. I have felt and been told a few times that I was born decades late.

The future... Exciting things are coming, but I also see a lot of problems on the horizon and things will be getting FAR worse before things get better. To jump past that would place me in a world I do not know or understand or belong. No thanks.

So yeah, the past.

[Jeannette]

I'd go far into the future. I'm fascinated by progress and I'd like to see how we get better not worse. I'd want to see the stars and, given our intellect, I want to know how (not if) we make it happen.

[fluffy jorgen]

Past.
I'd like to see where I went right / wrong, not to change it, but to refresh my memory and learn from it.

[NicholeW.]

O, I kinda am satisfied with the present and would rather just live at home rather than finding a new one in the past or the future.

Nichole

[Nero]

the past. i think i was william wallace in another life. 

[RebeccaFog]

Both past and future, but I'll have to choose one over the other.

The past because living in New England between 1800 and 1860 would be very nice. 

The future out of curiosity over what will it be like.


I choose the past. Sleeping with clean air and silence would be nice. That was a time for innovation and learning. There were all kinds of groups dedicated toward religion, philosophy, and general mulling over of truths.  You could more easily help people because most times the help was physical and not monetary. For example, if someone was sick and needed help getting their vegetables to market, you could just bring the veggies to market for them as opposed to someone being sick and then needing a ton of money for gas to transport their stuff.

Also, people say nice things about me now, but I feel I would be a better person given an existence that lacks the pressure and stresses we have today.


aloha

[Rachael]

Id like to go into the past... White i dont envy the social standing, id love to be a Roman woman... the whole togas thing suits my complexion....



Not to mention the roman army Rawr!

heck, i have a thing forthe 1600s too... Pirate wench would utterly rock...

[Janet_Girl]

I agree with Nichole.  The here and now.  I am happier than I have ever been and the past is too full of pain.  The future is to uncertain.

[lady amarant]

I'd love to go back into the distant, prehistoric past and answer all those grey areas about our development that are still so hotly contested - issues like the building of the Sphinx, Pyramids in China, etc. Apart from that, there are specific people I'd love to meet - Pythagoras, Plato, Apolonius of Tyana, Hypatia, Leonardo da Vinci, Queen Boadica - Oh wow, more people than I can count actually!

Personal history - hmmm. I don't know if I'd want to go back and knock some sense into myself earlier - I am a much better person because of my mistakes and disasters.

~Simone.

[RebeccaFog]

What if you went back to knock sense into yourself and we had to pull you off?

[Aurelius]

"Right here, right now
There is no other place I wanna be
Right here, right now
Watching the world wake up from history"
--Jesus Jones

Ironically, I first heard this song when I was miserable in boot camp trimming the base General's hedges. But the song always left a resonance with me that has never died, and holds true through the good times and bad.

Chris

Posted on: November 05, 2008, 12:39:44 am

I'd love to go back into the distant, prehistoric past and answer all those grey areas about our development that are still so hotly contested - issues like the building of the Sphinx, Pyramids in China, etc. Apart from that, there are specific people I'd love to meet - Pythagoras, Plato, Apolonius of Tyana, Hypatia, Leonardo da Vinci, Queen Boadica - Oh wow, more people than I can count actually!

Personal history - hmmm. I don't know if I'd want to go back and knock some sense into myself earlier - I am a much better person because of my mistakes and disasters.

~Simone.

Boudicca of the Iceni...now that's one woman I would not want to piss off.

What about Archimedes? Sitting in his tub yelling "Eureka!", a mad looking old man on the battlements of Syracuse with his death ray against the Roman fleet? THAT I'd like to see.

My all time favorite is my screen namesake, the Philosopher King Marcus Aurelius...in the cold northern forests of the Rhine, old and withered and tired, King Arthur like, desperately trying to protect his bright and shining idea without the desire or corruption of power, desiring peace but faced with unrelenting war, doomed for ulitmate failure yet acted out with such a triumph of spirit...maybe not entirely true, a romantic notion perhaps, but one I like to envision.

Chris

[Jay]

I would rather go into the future so my surgerys and transition was finished and I was finally happy and over every speed bump..

[lady amarant]

Chris, something tells me you're a fan of Marcus Aurelius - maybe I'm just psychic. Yeah, I'd love to meet Boudica and Hypatia of Alexandria, both SUCH powerful women in times when there weren't many opportunities for females. More recently, the steampunk geek in me would LOVE to meet Ada Lovelace - hell, I wouldn't mind giving her and Babbage a nudge in the right direction as far as computing goes. Mind you, imagine if one coulda given Da Vinci that same nudge ...

~Simone.

[Pica Pica]

i would like to get drink with samuel pepys.

[Rachael]

wait... is this a hypothetical which would you like to experience for  jollies or in YOUR life?
if so can i go back to my birth and bitchslap the doctor till he DOESNT sew me up?

[lady amarant]

if so can i go back to my birth and bitchslap the doctor till he DOESNT sew me up?

Methinks this sounds like a most excellent idea. Make sure you take knuckledusters.

~Simone.

[Aurelius]

Chris, something tells me you're a fan of Marcus Aurelius - maybe I'm just psychic. Yeah, I'd love to meet Boudica and Hypatia of Alexandria, both SUCH powerful women in times when there weren't many opportunities for females. More recently, the steampunk geek in me would LOVE to meet Ada Lovelace - hell, I wouldn't mind giving her and Babbage a nudge in the right direction as far as computing goes. Mind you, imagine if one coulda given Da Vinci that same nudge ...

~Simone.

Fan, indeed I am; but there are many others to. It is so hard to find people from antiquity who aren't villians, or more commonly, "heroes" who had also done great evil (like Constantine the Great, who had his own son murdered) in the name of the state or otherwise. Aurelius to me was the best that the empire had to offer in the golden age of emperors...Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, M. Aurelius (the Antonines). Never before and never since would the ancient Romans do so well as under them.

I like reading of Boudicca...and she most certainly qualifies as the dominant female personality from Roman Britain. But I would never, NEVER, piss her off! My favorite woman from the past is probably still Elizabeth I, the very best Merry England had to offer male or female. Remember many woman ruled or sub-ruled without the actual title, and ruled very well indeed...ie Theodosius' sister Pulchera comes to mind.

Through it all...I like the thinkers, male or female. Spinoza, Kant, Copernicus, Gallileo, Newton, Locke, Hume the list goes ever on.

I find it interesting no one has mentioned the openly transgendered Roman Emperor Elagulabus (AD218-222), very interesting but bizarre story. He actually wanted his physician to give him a sex change, but was told it was impossible. I will recount the story if anyone wants to read it.

Chris

[lady amarant]

I want to hear, oh sage of Roman Imperial history.

~Simone.