h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I wouldn't want to go back and say anything to myself, because that would influence the things I've done that made me what I am now. I'd love to go take a peek at myself when I was in my late teens, though... I'm really curious how I'd view that me from this me's eyes.

And I wouldn't want to look into my future, because one of the really cool aspects of the future is that it's a mystery.

I'd love to go back and meet my parents when they were falling in love, just to see what they were like. I think they'd become much more human to me, rather than being 'the parentoids'.

I'd like to be able to take little vacations into the past to see what the world was really like, and how it corresponds to my mental picture of it. I'd need a babelfish, of course. And I think I'd prefer to do it in a disembodied fashion. It would be something to go check out the beginning of the universe and see what really transpired. I'd love to track some biblical events and see how accurately they were reported. I'd want to listen to Socrates, and spend some time in the presence of my favorite authors and artists. I'd like to go do Woodstock, though I think I'd need a body for that.

It's probably a good thing that I can't do all those things because I suspect it would be really easy to spend an entire lifetime looking at the past rather than living in the present.