#038 How to become a time traveler

Today I'll share with you an essay I wrote in 2015, originally in Portuguese with 3 important lessons I learned in my experience traveling through time so far:

Time travel. The nerd who was never interested in the possibility of breaking the barriers of the clock shoot the first hourglass. If you dreamed of having the power of Hiro Nakamura and gaining this skill for your life, then this could be the long-awaited opportunity. No need for a Time-Turner, Tardis, DeLorean, or Tessaract.
I'm Gustavo Nogueira and I've always been fascinated by the idea of time travel. Preferably at a speed higher than the speed at which we move daily towards the future.

I have already devoured — a verb more appropriate to the context than the sterile “consume” — a lot of information on the topic, in the form of films, documentaries, series, books, games, comics, RPGs, courses, podcasts... And, why not, conspiratory theories hid in the darkest corners of the internet – some we still love to believe. I have accumulated the most varied references on how to be a time traveler and through this series of articles I want to put into practice another of my favorite activities: sharing my time.

If you are already a seasoned time traveler, feel free to start with any of my future articles, or go straight to debating the most varied time paradoxes of your choice on any of my social channels ;)

But, in the natural order of things, let's start with the most essential with 3 important lessons I've learned in my travels through time so far.

1. To envision the future, you have to go back twice as far into the past and first understand how we got to the present.

For those interested in envisioning the future of all things, the first lesson I learned is that. Before any trip to the future, it is necessary to go back twice as far into the past. Yes, this effort is necessary. And that means broadly evaluating the context and knowing in-depth the roots of the destination to be visited: what it was influenced by, what it influenced, what makes it unique in the universe, and what differentiates it from the entire context around it.

How much do you know about your starting point, traveler?

I believe the reasons will become clearer together with the second and third lessons, but the important thing at this point is that it is only by delving into all the paths taken so far that we reach a real understanding of where we are today. We turn the present moment into our starting point. And so our journey into the future can begin.

2. When you're in "Fast Forward" mode, sometimes you have to give up details and keep the focus on the flow.

For the future to become clear to the unprepared eyes of a new traveler, the second lesson is that the destination to be visited necessarily needs a very well-defined frame of reference. For a seasoned traveler, this benchmark can be anything. The social rules of a certain time, the behavior of a certain group of people, the climatic conditions of a coordinate on the map, the records of a certain society about its understanding of what/who is God, or even the broader version of these references as culture, economics, or religion.

But, it is important to say: that the broader your frame of reference, the longer it will take to disconnect from conventional time and get into “cruising speed” to reach the future. Time travelers call this flight mode "Fast Forward". Entering Fast Forward, it's time to put aside the scrutiny of past and present details and focus on the flow that connects one event to the next and then to the next. You will notice when you reach this mode. Navigators and explorers from different areas call this moment “flow”. Take advantage of it to go as far as possible. Novice travelers who choose to pay too much attention to the punctual details of a particular moment of the route, run the risk of being stuck there for a few years.

How far into the future can you travel?

Each traveler is well aware of his reasons for the trip and learns to recognize the right time to make a stop and stay in the present tense. But, in contrast, this is also one of the most fun parts of time travel. Past, present, and future can alternate between the roles of the extra or the main story. Just practice.

And when it's time to go home, we need to talk about the third and perhaps most important lesson.

3. Time machines are theoretical concepts invented to enable travel through the space-time fabric. Invent your own.

Time-Turner, Tardis, DeLorean, or Tessaract… There are many representations that approximate fiction and our reality, but the best comparison you can make now comes from the classic series Cosmos, where Carl Sagan explores space-time in his ship, The Ship of Imagination. In the real world, time machines are concepts that come into being the moment we imagine them. You may not have realized it, but that's what we did in the first lesson, by making the present moment our starting point: we found a way to embark on the future. And by traveling through time, if you don't find the future you were hoping for, you can create new ones.

Don't worry, I won't turn this guide into a self-help text. Nor do I want to break the magic of the real possibility of being a traveler that I am offering you. For you to better understand the power of using the imagination as a tool for navigation in space-time, Neil deGrasse Tyson, — renowned physicist, also responsible for the remake of Carl Sagan's series — was asked by a 6-year-old about what is the meaning of life. Neil, in response, spontaneously stated that the meaning of life is not an object, which we can stumble across during our walk through life. The meaning of life is something more complex, precisely because it is simpler to find: we create it.

Find a way to embark on your future. And if you don't find what you expected, create a new future.

Like Neil, I say to you, my time traveler friend: define what makes your trip meaningful, make the most of it, invent your time machine, and then create the future you want to achieve.

That's essential. You are now ready to begin.

Have a good trip!

Gustavo Nogueira de Menezes
NS1.34.12.27 Saturday 25 June 2022
#038 White Crystal Mirror
Reflect your best to the universe