Imagine you could.
Your smartphone would instantly become a glass brick, assuming it could travel through time. So, unless you had some way to stay connected to the present, there would be no coming back.
Even if you went back 20 years, you would not have the smartphone or social media. Now that's an idea worth thinking about, given that we know how polarised the world has become.
Go back over 100 years and you can mostly forget about cars .
No telephones either - not even land lines and rotary dials.
Go back another couple of hundred years and homes would have no heating or lights. Conveniences we consider basic.
All those fast food cravings would have to remain as cravings. Unless you took a whole lot of ingredients and the recipes back to the past.
Question is, how would you take back plastic packs and even books to a time when they didn't exist?
Think about it. A thousand years ago, books had not been invented. So they would disappear when you traveled.
Even the clothes you wear today - they weren't invented, so how can they stay on you?
Going back in time means reversing all the advancements, good and bad. Its not about transplanting the present into the past.
Now, would you actually know that you were back in time? In your mind, maybe but it would be hard to explain how much the world changed to the people around you.
If you could speak the language, that is. Apart from explaining that you aren't an alien from another planet.
There's this mental picture we have of travelling to the past and moving back to the present, as if it were simply a physical journey.
You can't go back in time as a tourist. With a real risk that you can cease to exist!
Slumming it
India has the dubious distinction of having the largest slum in Asia. Or is it the world? Dharavi.
It's where people live on the edge, every single day.
The facilities and the space available are among the tightest in an already expensive metropolis.
And yet, it produces stories of entrepreneurship and triumph against the odds.
Including something as strange as 'Slum Tourism' where the affluent gawk at the unfortunate.
There is really no parallel.
Rashmi Bansal wrote 'Poor Little Rich Slum' documenting the lives of hardy entrepreneurs from Dharavi.
They aren't asking for handouts but contributing to the economics that drive the city.
And that's a clear sign that people braving the biggest odds need support from the government to improve their lives.
Rather than redevelop the slum and build something for the affluent, Brazil is trying a different approach.
They are mapping out the byzantine lanes and the cramped access that people living in the slum navigate every day and seeing how the slum can access public services.
Resilience is built into slums as the recent experience of managing Covid in such tightly packed areas demonstrated.
People who were informed and educated on the dangers did a great job of managing the community and stopping the spread - even though they were living at a tremendous disadvantage.
There's no doubt that the people who live in the slum have little room for maneuver - and that's precisely why health and some of the welfare services could play a great role in easing lives.
They shouldn't be forced to slum it.
Thank your stars you have to worry about your future!
There's an interesting discussion going on in a forum.
A young guy got an unexpected windfall of $7.5 million - setting him up for life essentially.
It meant he would not have to work another day - which is what most of us would see as a stroke of amazing luck.
And yet, that's not what happened.
As he describes it : And I also have no idea what to do with my life now. I have not talked to anyone about it but I start to feel fatigued, even though I am not doing much. My motivation for my study is gone, I stopped working out, stopped reading books and am basically becoming insanely depressed in the process. The covid situation is not helping much either.
Hardly what you'd expect.
He literally has lost the incentive to do anything because he does not have to 'worry' about the future.
Practically all the advice given to him by the others is not to tell anyone - because the pressure on him will only increase.
He will find long-lost 'friends' and relatives eager to help him spend the money and keep some for themselves.
Now that his choice is unlimited, he has no clue on what he would like to do - distorted by having no incentive to put in the effort.
We have been brought up to believe that motivation is internal - and nothing saps it like having enough money to laze around for the rest of your life.
Though I'm sure all of you are hoping that you'll be in exactly the same state he's in.
Think money will solve all your problems? Be careful what you wish for!
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