You discover a time machine. Before you can use it, however, you must flip a single switch that cannot be undone. This time machine can either only go into the past, or it can only go into the future.
Which way would you flip the switch?
Before you give your answer, I’m sure you have some questions regarding the specs of said time machine. I mean, makes absolute sense, given this is the single largest decision you will ever make in your life, amiright??
“Can I get back to present day? Can I change the fate of my future whilst traveling through time?”
All great questions. But let me just quell every concern in one fell swoop: I am not the almighty rule-setter of this parallel universe where such magical time machine exists. Whatever you want it to do, it can surely do.
Actually, before you read any further, I welcome you to think through your own answer to the question. Don’t let what I say hereafter influence you!
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Ready?
Alright, proceed.
I’ve had this conversation with a handful of people throughout my life, starting my sophomore year of college. Each time this discussion occurs, the conditions, features, and specs of the unidirectional time machine changes. And each time I’ve learned something new about myself. What do I value most (right now, in this period of my life)? How will I live a life of meaning?
The direction in which I flip the switch, though, has never changed. Mostly because I am stubborn as f-ck. I invite you to guess which direction I’d choose based on the following four short anecdotes – all possessing varying levels of influence on my life. Each story has shaped my decision so that, if in whatever likelihood I discover this wondrous, slightly-defunct time machine, I’d know exactly which way to flip the switch. (Yes, these are the types of things I spend a nontrivial amount of time thinking about……)
One.
When I was in middle school, we’d play a game called “A Walk in the Woods”. It was an introspective game you’d play with your friends. The narrator would say: “Close your eyes and imagine you are walking in the woods. Someone is walking with you. Who is it? You walk and you walk, and you reach a house. How many stories does this house have? Does it have a fence around it? You walk into the house. Is there a fireplace? If yes, is there a fire in there? You then see a table. What’s on the table?………….”
This game was as close as Mendi-the-middle-schooler got to an MD degree. My psychoanalysis would go something like this: The person you are walking with in the woods is the person you “currently” care about the most. The fence (or lack thereof) around your house represents if you are able to easily open up to others. If the “thing” on your table is fruit – you are generally an optimistic person. Etc. etc. I don’t actually remember the details of this game; in fact, I’m fairly certain when I narrated it, it was all just a bunch of vapid, intuitive bullsh-t, but I loooooved playing it nonetheless. Over and over with different people. My favorite part was hearing about how people envisioned their houses. In my mind, this answer was representative of how we’d all turn out in life…
Two.
When I was a junior in high school, I developed a faaaaat crush on a fellow musician in my youth symphony. We met while we were touring Finland, Estonia and Russia with the orchestra and, being away from home traveling with the man-of-my-dreams (so romantic), I was as head over heels as any teenybopper could get. (Not trying to discount young love here, guys, just saying it how it is.)
Remember the heart-wrenching feeling never quite knowing if feelings were reciprocated by your crush? On AOL Instant Messenger, we’d chat for hours on end. But why do I feel like I’m putting in more effort than him in my responses? Oh, shit! He IM’d me first this time – wootwoot! Omg, we haven’t talked in 36 hours but he’s only been “Away” for 12…. It’s over – I’m done-for.
I most certainly excelled at teenage angst.
One of the most memorable highlights of my young life was when he did possibly the single sweetest thing any person in their teens could ever do for someone …….. make me a mixtape. (Okay, in this particular circumstance, it was not a tape. It was a CD. Same shit.)
I still distinctly remember (1) Receiving the CD, heart beating out of my chest; (2) Saw that he had written out the entire playlist on the CD in sharpie. Awwww… his handwriting is so bad. That’s adorable; (3) Listening to this CD approximately 3,385,681 times in the span of the month.
I drove my badass Scion TC to/from school, track meets, orchestra rehearsal, and instrument lessons – you can betcha I was bumpin’ this mixtape every single time I stepped into the car. Ohhh man, that emo-rock, indie pop shit was fire.
………
Spoiler alert: We never did end up getting together. And I’m not even sure he ever liked me or thought anything of that mixtape. And I can’t quite recall now how I ever got over him. Oh, to have loved and to have lost.
Three.
(Apologies, but this is going to get a bit heavy…)
My freshman year of college, I lost a friend.
It was Winter Break, and while our school allowed us to stay in dorms for the entirety of the break, I, like the vast majority of students, went back home to spend time with my family. I decided I wanted to return to campus a week prior to the start of Spring semester just so I could start prepping for classes before they began. (Hush. I admit this sounds very nerdy but it is what it is.) Expectedly, not many people had returned to campus yet.
In my dorm, we had “suites”, which just meant a group of people shared a kitchen and living space. I remember one morning I walked to the kitchen to refill my Brita filter. Shortly after, he walked in. He was in a bathrobe, bringing a dirty dish to the sink. “Hi, Eric!” I exclaimed excitedly, since, despite his towering size, Eric was one of the genuinely sweetest and gentle people I knew. Not to mention, one of the first people I had met coming to this big new school in this big new city. I asked him how his break went, fully expecting a standard, jovial reply. “Oh, not great, actually. My girlfriend broke up with me.” “Oh, I see.” I tried to comfort him, but witnessing his sullen mood, decided not to pry any further. After all, maybe they still had a chance. “I’m really sorry, Eric, I hope you feel better and I’m here to talk if you ever need me. You know where I live anyway, haha.”
Two days later, Eric took his own life.
When I found out, I could not process my emotions. This feeling lasted for weeks. Now that it’s been almost a decade, I don’t want to say I harbor any guilt from my interaction with him those two days prior, but to this day, I still wonder: What if I had done things differently? Said something else? Something more.
I actually still think about it a lot.
Four.
Roy’s Peak in Wanaka, New Zealand: Never had I felt more like Jim Carrey in The Truman Show, as he sailed on the ocean, with beautiful skies, panoramic views surrounding…… Only to crash his ship into a wall. The gorgeous sky was in fact… a painting. Staring out at Wanaka after the grueling 2.5 hour switchback-ridden ascent felt akin to staring at the most beautiful, color-saturated painting I had ever seen. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be.
Big Sur, California: I woke up at 3AM the morning of my 26th birthday to drive to Big Sur for sunrise. My heart ached like it had never before during that solitary 3-hour drive as I reflected on the relationship that had abruptly ended three days prior. After hiking up during sunrise to the highest viewpoint of Big Sur, I stared down at the coastline. And at that moment, I felt hope for the first time in 72 hours. Mendi, it doesn’t end here. Your best days are yet to come.
Trolltunga, Norway: Cisco was so good to me; why did I ever f-cking leave? These were my very thoughts as I hit rock bottom of my career thus far. I felt so ostracized from this new company I had so eagerly joined after not having been “challenged” enough by my previous role. Was I overzealous in taking this on? These demons cycled through my mind as I traveled to Norway for a rapid-fire, solo-travel respite from work. As I turned every corner on my hike to see the famed Trolltunga rock, each new viewpoint took my breath away. And along the way, I realized: A job is a job is a job. The end. I immediately thought back to that one trip to Big Sur, exactly a year back, amidst heartbreak. It really doesn’t end here, Mendi. Your best days are still yet to come.
Though I certainly tried to just now, I cannot tangibly describe my feelings towards each of these three places mentioned above. The circumstances of my life, my mind-state, the grit it took to climb up those mountains – all contributed to this experience that can only be losslessly recounted in my own memory. These emotions will almost certainly never leave me.
And I have 165 countries left to see in the world. That’s 165 more opportunities to make new memories. To create that best day of my life.
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Okay, now that storytime is over, which direction do you think I would choose? Is it obvious?
Drumrolllllllll… the answer?
Backwards. Into the past.
If the answer were obvious, I’m sorry. Subtlety has never been a strong suit. But the reasons why I’d choose this direction may not be so obvious, since my intention is certainly not to change anything that has happened in the past.
No – the reasons why I didn’t go into a full discussion on the details of the time machine specs – for instance, whether or not you could change the past, etc. – is because (1) I didn’t want this post to be 4,204 pages long; and (2) this detail for me, is completely irrelevant. I would never, ever change something that has already happened. I live with truly #NoRagrets.
What I yearn for is the feeling embodied in each of those four anecdotes. (1) To feel that youthful exuberance, wondering how successful I’ll be when I’m older, buying a laaaarge house to support my family. (2) To feel the fervor of young love, the uninhibited overflow of emotions before one gets inevitably jaded with modern dating. (3) To feel empty – to yearn that you could’ve done something differently to change an outcome. To feel like life for any of us is so fleeting and we must, must, must carpe that diem. And (4) To feel wonder at the world and, ultimately…. hope. To feel it deep into your core… that “this, too, shall pass”.
Every “instance” of emotion in one’s lifetime is never the same. Circumstances change. The environment changes. Mental health changes. All I would like from this time machine is to know if the unadulterated joy I felt as a 3-year-old in a sandbox, is at all similar to the unadulterated joy I felt stepping foot on Antarctica.
And that’s why I want to travel to the past. I fear that the rawness of those feelings will never return.
And don’t get me wrong, it’s definitely enticing to travel forward to see how things turn out. But to be completely honest here, I’ve just never been all that curious. Who cares? I know I am shaping my future with every step I take, and as long as the step is kind-of-sort-of-directionally-correct (let’s be real, I go off-roading a lot), I’m totally good with whatever and however things pan out.
I also have a lowkey fear that what if… you travel into the future, and… it doesn’t exist.
In one of my favorite books, When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi is a man who is ruthlessly robbed of his future. He is diagnosed with stage four lung cancer at 36, and in the very last stretch of his life, realizes the importance of creating “moments” in one’s life.
“I don’t believe in the wisdom of children, nor in the wisdom of the old. There is a moment, a cusp, when the sum of gathered experience is worn down by the details of the living. We are never so wise as when we live in the moment.’
I seek to return to each of the “moments” that have so fundamentally shaped my life. Re-live everything in its purest, rawest forms. And learn from them. Again. We get so bogged down with the details of living, we forget about these very moments.
Even the smallest ones: Think of your favorite song in the world. A song that, when you first heard it, changed your life. Yep. Nothing comes close to that initial feeling when I listened to song #3 for the first time on that beloved mixtape.
Shit was damn. real.
With love,
Mendi
the wanderlust is real. 