Time Travel

Posted on | August 5, 2018 | No Comments

You know why you love Back To The Future?

Do you? Fucking do you?

Because intuitively you believe that you can travel back to the past and fix your mistakes and that’s because you’re as deluded as the rest of us. And there’s a very specific reason you believe it.

You spend your life attempting it. You go through your past conversations and you attempt to change them. And because of a very specific glitch in your brain you feel very deeply that it must be possible to achieve.

What is this glitch?

The brain is constructed in two layers. One is the lizard brain that early humans had for hunting, emotional management and survival. This part of the brain occupies the top layer of the brain stem and is not dissimilar to other forms of animal in nature. As we evolved newer parts of the brain grew up around our lizard cores. The newer parts of the brains deal with reasoning and reflection. But the older parts of the brain exist in isolation, so when we are reading fiction, they react as they are genuinely experiencing the events of the story. They don’t know they are being lied to. So when we go back in our minds deep in rumination part of us truly believes that we are able to go back into the past and change it. We can’t feel the difference deep in our brains between rumination and lived experience.

Time travel stories aren’t actually about time travel. But the quest to move past rumination and create the changes we wished to see in the past in our present. Every time travel story points to the necessity of acceptance, which is also the only psychological way to escape endless rumination. By accepting our past we stop telling stories of how it can be changed and free ourselves to make change. Because if we were really talking about time travel and fixing our mistakes, well of course we make choices we should have made differently and not every time traveller is going to fuck up the past and bring about the apocaylpse. But acceptance is about forgiving ourselves and there is literally no practical lesson to be learned from successful time travel that makes the world a better place until the technology is created and you learn to hold in your fart on your true loves birthday that started that forest fire.

I guess what I am trying to say is forgive yourself for your past.

Because it’ll stop you reaching for something that can’t by definition reach back. Marty McFly can’t change the life of his father. He just needs to learn to accept his weak father and alcoholic mom. Because nothing he does is going to help him get back to the clock tower. He needs to practice his music and figure out a way to use his pain to create something beautiful. Because the only place we can fix the past is by our actions in the present.

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About

Michael Kimber is a 26-year-old journalist who suffered a nervous breakdown on November 3rd, 2009. On March 28th, 2010 when he recovered from mental illness, he began writing a blog called Colony-of-losers. About falling on your face to figure out who you are and the hilarious antics of a blond jew. What began with a few friends and his mother reading has become a cult phenomenon, averaging 10,000 views a week, receiving praise from Commonwealth Award Winner Shandi Mitchell and many others. On, November 3rd, 2010, the one year anniversary of his mental breakdown he signed with Anne McDermid and Associates, the largest literary agency in Canada. In a year he went from wearing pajamas, making his couch depression HQ to leaving his hometown for the Toronto, where he exclusively wears business suits and the armor of ancient Greeks. Don't worry, he's still choking on the feet he contently sticks in his mouth and making moments awkward just by being part of them. During these struggles he met other talented bastards and drew them into his circle. Peter Diamond became his illustrator. Patrick Campbell his video editor and part time photographer. He recently added the incredibly talented John Packman as Colony of Losers Toronto photographer. Without the support of the Colony of Losers, Michael Kimber would be nothing. Welcome to the losers and the success that comes from utter and complete failure. You aren’t alone. Follow him on twitter.com/colonyoflosersand twitter.com/quimbo. If you’d like to hire him for a public speaking engagement for mental health events in Toronto, like to arrange an interview, offer millions to publish his book or for another reason contact Michael please email him. And join his facebook Colony of Losers.

Really obvious disclaimer:
I’m not a trained psychologist. Just a fellow traveler. If you need help seek it from the professionals. The Canadian Mental Health Association provides a help locator. You can find crisis resources provided by the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention. If you are in the states check here. It will give you services by zip code. I’d also recommend checking out Mindyourmind.ca. I think they do great work and have been a help to me personally.