As the Devil or any assumed supernatural being, physical limits don’t apply to me. However, the dangerous pleasures of time-travelling are indulgences justifiable in the realm of metaphysics, even for the simplest of humans.
Okay, the simplest of humans likely can’t spell metaphysics; assuming that they can entertain complex philosophical notions is unfair.
But I digress.
Let me say that if I could travel back to any year, it would be the beginning of 2022 when this blogging challenge started – WordPress only alerted me to it today.
I don’t want to go back to any year.
And if it’s trust you’re talking about here, then you should afford the person blindly willing to go back in time much less of it than the lazy email campaigns that see me twenty-one days behind in my creative writing.
Consider, or apprehend, if you will, the implications of temporal paradoxes and their utility to your timeline.
As I read through the many entries for this prompt, I find the authors’ intentions to be almost invariably to alter the past. Assuming they could accomplish a different timeline for themselves, they seem to have no regard for how it affects others.
And people call me selfish. I told you not to trust them.
Assume that the consistency paradox (some of my best people call it The Grandfather paradox because of a cool thought experiment about it.) breaks down, and the time-traveller can do something that didn’t happen. If that same time-traveller can change one instance in an intricate chain of events to vastly alter their present – what does it mean to you?
As a result, you should ponder if the time-traveller knew or cared about the repercussions of their desires and actions on you. More so, if their timeline is intertwined with yours.
Were they innocently unaware of the consequences or indifferent to your circumstances?
A more sombre thought is about the significance of timeline alterations to the concept of free will and choice. To whom, if you may think of anyone, would you give that kind of control over your reality?
There you have it. And if the pursuit of happiness is important, then the dangerous pleasures of time-travelling should remain a theoretical exercise. As I said, I don’t want to travel back to any time. I am happy in the here and now – the only place and time greatness exist.
Thank you for reading.
— The Devil Unbound
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