December Days 21 - The Time Traveler's Advice

[silveradept]

[It's December Days time! There's no overarching theme this year, so if you have ideas of things to write about, I'm more than happy to hear them.]

bethany_lauren wanted to know what one piece of advice I would tell my younger self.

A question like this often stalls out on the need to only give one piece of advice to the younger you. There are a lot of things that produce regrets or hopes to do things over again.

There's also the matter of which younger self I get to talk to. If it's childhood me, the advice has to be couched in such a way as to be comprehensible to younger-me or that it will be written down and not lost over time, so that when I need it again, it's there so that it will influence in the right direction. Teenage-me would need serious convincing of any sort of advice at all. College-me might be wise enough to actually get it and put it to use. And professional me would get it, and then have to do something about it.

Depending on which person I'm talking to, the advice shifts. Many of my younger selves, if given one piece of advice, would probably get "Your friends are more interested in you than you believe. Pursue them," as their takeaway. If I had managed that earlier on in life, I probably would have made some other mistakes, and there would be no guarantees on anything, of course, but I might have managed to avoid being as forlorn as I was about relationships at that point. Considering that my natural state is "clueless", some advice from my future self about how to go about things would have been pretty useful.

At a certain point, though, the advice stops being about pursuing someone and more about paying better attention. The post-college me gets a different piece of advice - "Someone who wants that much that quickly, and doesn't give in return, is not going to turn out well. [Keep your original appointment.]"

Following that piece might alter the time stream significantly enough that the third time that have happened would have washed away and something else taken their place, but I think the me of that timeline would be significantly happier than the one of this timeline, so it's probably worth the risk of scratching out some other things. And maybe they would have happened anyway. Gods only know, and it's ultimately not important until there is a time machine at work.

I realize now that this question always seems to attract regrets and things to do differently. How nice it would be that, if given a time machine, a person used it to go back and just enjoy their younger years again. No need to change anything, just the ability to go back and enjoy things.

(And not like that cruel twist in About Time where you can only go back until the birth of a child, and therefore lose the people you love anyway.)

This year is full of sadness and regrets. Many of them of my own doing. I can only hope that the time traveler's advice for me at this point is "You're almost there. Keep it up, and things will get better."

Comments

[azurelunatic]

Like I said, a happier you would be very good.

[silveradept]

Yes. That would be very, very good.

[azurelunatic]

From what I could see, young Silver was a good kid. I think I would have liked them.

[silveradept]

They were a good kid, but very wrapped up in their own insecurities.

[azurelunatic]

So they were. And yet.

[batrachian]

Agreed on the difficulty of narrowing down to one thing.

Timing matters.

[silveradept]

It really does. Trying to craft a single piece of advice with which to hopefully avoid certain bad parts of your life is a thing that could take a lifetime to do, and then there would still be no guarantee that it worked.

[batrachian]

Quite so.

(And then there's the part where, arguably, even the bad parts are nonetheless *part*. see Tapestry...

[silveradept]

Yes. You can't make Picard without him getting stabbed in the heart. Even though having a good heart would have been helpful.

[alatefeline]

With this question, I always wind up at the sense that ANYTHING I could say to a younger me *would* seemingly change the time-stream; if I could convey information to my younger self, I feel that I would be diverting that younger self into being a different person than me-now.

Yet I do, in a sense, converse with my younger self; I have a (very occasional) habit of nodding to previous quandaries and challenges when I feel they have been resolved. Also of leaving thoughtful notes or challenges in place where I'll come across them literally years later. Every message younger-me sends forward, I feel compelled to answer mentally although I do so with the knowledge that I haven't really sent any data backwards. Sometimes I try to consciously create a moment where, by way of the place or activity I am engaged in, my past and present and future selves can co-exist in a similar affective space of joy leavened with sorrow, sadness tinged with hope, and so on. It's a way of holding my integrity; knowing that however I change, I wish to be accountable to the younger me for doing so thoughtfully and not carelessly betraying my principles. It's a way of exercising self-compassion, and saying to younger-me 'I hold you in my heart; if you were here in body and conscious experience, as you are within my memory, I would hold you in my arms.' It's a way of challenging future-me to be as exciting and fulfilling to be as I imagine now, while acknowledging that the details will shift.

It's also difficult. When I feel frustration and disappointment with myself now, how much harder is it to look at my past self (or my theoretical future one) and say, 'You're okay. You're going to get (t)here. Of course you screwed up; that's allowed. You are enough. Better yet, you are amazing.' And yet, how empowering.

Anyway. Apologies for the extended diversion into self-reflection, rather than specific comment on what you had to say.

I enjoyed reading your thoughts on this topic, very much.

[silveradept]

It's a good thing to have reflection, that's what I hope happens with many of these posts.

[alatefeline]

Thank you.

[azurelunatic]

You're almost there. Just a few more weeks before it starts turning around.