Which is the most important: yesterday, today, or tomorrow?
When asked this question, some would answer today because today is the present – a gift. Others would choose tomorrow because what is today without the promise of all the tomorrows yet to come?
The English Teacher, who has edited this column for the past 16 years, says I spend a lot of time in the yesterdays, thinking that I choose them over the present or even the tomorrows.
Of that she is correct. For me, the choice between the three time periods is really no choice at all. Yesterday is by far the most important. For it’s yesterday that all the todays and tomorrows are built upon.
But what if you didn’t have to choose. What if we somehow could travel back to the yesterdays? Impossible? Einstein theorized superluminal travel enabling time travel was impossible, but some scientists believe the great theoretical physicist was mistaken. They believe that memories can travel at an infinite speed, and I believe we can hitch a ride with them.
Einstein also theorized that traveling the speed of light or faster would be impossible because an infinite amount of energy would be required to do so. Neurons in the brain fire signals to the spinal cord at 270 miles per hour, far less than the speed of light, but just how fast is a memory?
Researchers at the University of Geneva at the Centre for Quantum Technologies believe thought memories, “… literally have the means to travel faster than the speed of light. Thoughts are energy. Their speed is probably infinite.” That would mean the energy they produce is also infinite, making time travel possible. Thought memories of yesterdays are what I have the most of.
So each one of us has the ability of time travel, all we have to do is have memories and think about them. But with the question of time travel now answered, that answer brings with it yet another question. If you could time travel, where would you go?
For me, the answer is simple. I would travel back to the one place that is the origin of more of my childhood memories than any other. And as a writer, time travel makes complete sense to me. When writing about Flamingo Street and all the kids that lived there, I often get lost in the story. I get lost in time. Suddenly I realize not minutes have passed, but hours. Time has been folded upon itself as the yesterdays become as real as today.
Still, for me, the proof is as indisputable as Einstein’s theory of relativity. Time travel is indeed possible for anyone who wants to remember the yesterdays. It is our memories of the yesterdays that enable us all to travel to a much simpler place in a much simpler time.
Join us here each week as we make the journey together. Back to an old familiar street not so far away called Flamingo and a neighborhood full of kids with funny nicknames who have adventures and misadventures that surely will transcend the barriers of time.
[Rick Ryckeley has been writing stories since 2001. To read more of Rick’s stories, visit his blog: storiesbyrick.wordpress.com.]
