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"We're sorry, but your search for 'so long and thanks for all the fish' didn't find any matches."

Okay theres something seriously wrong with that h2g2 search engine if it's not finding that... I thought they'd fixed it.

Ah don't you love procrastination

Discuss this Journal entry [13]

Latest reply: Nov 21, 2008

What if you had the power to change Time?

On occasion I am exceptionally deep. I know I know, its a huge surprise, I never give the impression of being deep at all smiley - tongueout

I can't change time. No one I'm aware of can change time. But that's not to say that we may never be able to change time - and by proxy does that mean that people from the future already can? I don't know.

But who here hasn't thought of things that have happened in their past that they could change or direct differently? I would imagine there few honest people who wouldn't change anything. Of course the thing with time is that circumstances lead us down different roads. One left turn here or right turn there have radical effects ten years down the line!

Facebook scares me. Mostly because I see lots of people I knew in school on there now. And some of them have families. Some of them are married. Some of them I so wish I had spoken to more about what I thought of them, whether I liked them or otherwise. Some people I probably said too much.

But one struck a chord. For obiouos reasons I don't want to reveal who this is, but I seriously liked this girl, but did nothing about it... out of sheer terror. And she never knew, and its probably better than she doesn't know - because she's now married with two kids. For some reason that terrifies me.

Because it makes me think that if I could bend time to my will, if I had that power, I would want to take a chance to be with her. Maybe it wouldn't have worked out, but maybe it would have. But if I had changed time like that, two young children wouldn't exist. I would have caused them to cease to exist. I mean of course I can't change time, so why bother thinking about it? Because for me, thinking about these things is me. If I stopped thinking about things, I fear I would no longer be me.

But I ask a larger question really. And its one of power... perhaps something that is more tangible and closer to what is currently real. And that is what if you were given the power to change time to your will. To cause people to cease to exist (and perhaps replace them with other who didn't have the chance to exist) - even if you believed things would ultimately be better - would you for your own happiness change things?

I guess its like the genie in the bottle (or the monkeys paw if you're familiar with that story), in that you are perhaps putting your own happiness above others.

Okay change tack. I once saw an epusode of Star Trek : Voyager called "Year of Hell" and frankly it was one of the most fascinating pieces of sci-fi I've seen on TV. Essentially it was about this alien scientist with a family who dabbled with Time Travel and lost them... he even lost the people he knew - except those aboard his time ship. His eternal mission then became to set things back as they were - but how ever hard he tried he couldn't get his wife and family back. And he would kill whole civilisations (or rather erase them from history) to try and change things.

See so often these things wont even brush the surface of peoples minds... well to be brutally frank because they're currently not possible. But it does go back to that old chestnut, that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely... or maybe even a bit of Lord of the Rings - to paraphrase Gandalf "I would use the ring to do good, but through me it would weild a terrible power for evil"...

And that's what it comes down to. When I think back to what could have been am I wiping out those children that now exist (who may have existed anyway) because I couldn't bring myself to ask? And does that mean that if God, or a genie or whoever came to me and said "here you are shape this situation to make you the most happy", would that mean I was putting my happiness above everyone elses?

Discuss this Journal entry [5]

Latest reply: Nov 10, 2008

Late night rant and stuff

Okay a few gripes. Rant One, why do people get tattoos? Actually why does EVERYONE (okay slight exaggeration, but not by much) get a tattoo...

I'm not sure why it bothers me, its not my body, but I'm struggling to think of people outside of my immediate family that haven't got one. And maybe its unfair of me to impose these thoughts on people, but its my journal so I thought what the hell I'll rant about it. Its not so much that people get them... its that they're not going away EVER. And its like the only reason that I've ever heard to get them is that their either cool (usually not a reason for me to do something, me tending not to be part of the in crowd - officially anyway [although like the Doctor I like to think I can fit in anywhere ] )... or that "I just want it". I think in some respects I'm lucky in that I actually didn't become cooler (before which I'd spent pretty much most of my life as a social outcasr) until I was in Uni and work when either I changed or other people did...

Except now most of the social outcasts I know have tattoos... Gnah. What actually provoked this, to be 100% truthful, was that a while ago an ex-girlfriend got a small tattoo on her wrist. I'd become good friends afterwards (again truthfully, hoped to get back together again... but hey life don't work like that) but for some reason this caused my brain to scream at me. Like she'd somehow permanently damaged herself... (which she has) but I beat myself up mentally over this because its her choice, but I really couldn't understand... it was like someone was clawing a rake over my brain...

I don't pretend to be a rational person smiley - erm But argh! Same goes for any kind of self mutilation (nose rings... piercings in general - even recently I've been wondering about womens earrings... Why is that seen as acceptable? And we think people who put plates in the lips are strange...). Somehow accidental scars and things don't bother me at all. I prefer to see real skin any day over something someone's rather crudely tried to draw. Okay, I can appreciate peoples will to be artistic, but for me a drawing canvas and the human body are not the same thing.

Anyway, hey happy tattooed people out there you're okay with me smiley - biggrin It can't bother me that much I suppose, because some of my best friends in the world have tattoos... it just tends to make want me to pull my brain out through my nose when I think about why they'd wanted to do it.

Okay... there was another rant but I may have forgotten it... oh I think I remember... not a good one either really... Its about relationships... actually I think I'll give this one a miss for now. Thoughts of relationships and women (especially ex-girlfriends with post relationship tattoos...) in general always screw my head up... which is why I'm typing so late at night and can't sleep.

Oh and jobs going okay. Very very stressful, but okay. Much better than the other one which was pretty much killing me. Generally considered not good.

So hey, that was fun! I should do this more often, its therapeutic!

Bye

Discuss this Journal entry [9]

Latest reply: Oct 15, 2008

New job and stuffs

Wonderful, I have a new job! smiley - biggrin I probably should be asleep, but I can't sleep, so I'm not.

I'm also aware that theres loads of things I would love to be doing on h2g2, that I'm not doing, but well for one reason or another haven't. But I am happier, for those who may have been worried about my more relatively recent journal entries.

I am now a computer programmer, as opposed to a teacher. Which is my preference, at least for the moment.

I really really did intend to do some more work for the post and aviators, but every time I recorded it, there was something wrong with the sound... and haven't had much time since work began. Sorry Rich!

Erm... I dunno if that covers the stuffs part of the title, but anyway, new job, its weird, but good... so see what happens...

Discuss this Journal entry [4]

Latest reply: Aug 31, 2008

Not full of the joys of spring...

And I don't know why. Well I know part of the reason, but I shouldn't be this down. I'll be back up tomorrow I know. It just seems to help to do a bit of yelling into cyberspace.

My computer isn't working well. I'm trying to get it fixed, but the connection keeps cutting out, and it sounds like its dying, so I have to keep doing a system restore, which isn't really working for some reason. I should have fixed this before now, but I just don't have the time to do anything about it. Except for moan apparently.

I'm normally pretty happy, and given that potential changes (work wise anyway) are on the horizon, I should be more up. But I'm not. I guess I'm just exhausted. Its been a hell of a year. Its been a hell of a four years if I'm honest. I feel a little like I'm stepping out in to the light of potential for the first time in years. I've been writing 2005 on documents lately for some bizarre reason. Maybe thats to make up for 3 years lost. Well they're not really lost, I've done a lot of important things in that time, and met a lot of important people. But I just feel I should have been able to do a lot of this stuff a lot sooner.

I'm an inherently moral person, very moral actually. And maybe I'm just sick of trying to be something I'm not. I'm an engineer at heart, I've said it for a long time. I should be building things, making things better - maybe in a way I am. I am a teacher after all. But I really don't know how much difference I'm making any more.

Anyway I'm sorry if I'm filling up your conversations with this crap, I'm just feeling a little crap at the moment. As always people I'll be back fighting the demons once more in no time - I've just got to beat a few (hundred) personal ones first.

Discuss this Journal entry [8]

Latest reply: May 20, 2008


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Terran

Researcher U201249

Post Reporter
Former AViator
Former Underguide Volunteer
Work Edited by h2g2

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