In Other Words

Back to the future

All right, I don’t want to turn this Blog into a religious debate. That doesn’t mean I’ll ignore it entirely, but that does mean I’ll move away from it for today (and maybe tomorrow, I’ll see how I feel and if I’m provoked). Instead I’ll discuss something far important to me, namely me. (yes I am an arsehole, didn’t you realise that yet?)

Finished the back to the future trilogy again last night and I have to say it is quite enjoyable. Easy viewing, yet cleverly done. I especially appreciate all the easter eggs that they worked into the script. Like the way things change when they travel back and forth in time. To give you an example, when the movie starts there is a mall called ‘two pine mall’. Then the main character (played by Michael J. Fox) goes back and time to a farm that used to be on the mall grounds. There he accidentally drives through a gate and crushes a pine (you can hear the farmer yell ‘my pine tree!’) When the main character returns to the future the name of the sign is changed into the ‘lone pine mall’, though you only get one chance to see it and it isn’t discussed by the characters. More of these small little things are mixed through the entire movie, though you have to watch carefully to catch them.

But I was going to talk about me. Of late I’m having these flash backs to things I did when I was younger and I can’t help but feel embarrassed yet again. Its weird, most of these things I haven’t thought about in years but now they come up in me again and I just want to hit my forehead and go ‘doh!’. Why is my mouth so much bigger than my brain? Stupid things like when I was 11 or so I asked a kid that I was befriended with before I moved out of the country whether he still smelled out of his mouth (he had this horrible smell wafting from his mouth when he was younger) this was probably the first question I asked him after not having seen the guy for a year and a half.

Or being too dense to notice that two of the prettiest girls in the school really liked me (when I just moved there). This while they were throwing rocks at the girl that I was interested in at the time! (Once one of them hit me and they came surging up all apologetic and making sure I was all right). Did I finally figure out that they liked me? Yeah, about five years later when I left the school!

(I did ask the girl those other two girls were throwing rocks at to a dance at one point, but then when the dance came around I changed my mind and didn’t tell her, so she kind of hung around and I was too much of a twat to talk to her. I imagine she felt quite hurt by that).

Christ, school memories. I wonder how many people I unintentionally hurt through the years. How many signs I misinterpreted. How many of my friends buggered me over. I seem to have been exceptionally thick when I was younger, especially with women. Oh well, some things never change.

The most important question, in the end, to figure out if your happy with who you are is whether you would change our past, if you could. Would I? Yes, in a heartbeat, absolutely. It was all crap and my parents, teachers and friends (now and then) are all to blame!

Honestly though, not a moment, though I would like to know how much I hurt people and maybe go back and make their pain a little easier. I am happy with who I am (though I’m too bloody lazy) and wouldn’t want to loose that just to see what else I could have had, though a quick glance would be cool, as long as I could return to this life. Who would turn down a glance? (That’s not a rhetorical question, who would turn down a glance into an alternate reality for themselves?)

Interesting fact: The world population is expected to go up to 9 billion (by aprox. 2050) and to then start sinking again. The reason is that urbanisation is causing a drop in birth rates due to children not being economically viable in the urban setting (i.e. kids are simply too expensive). (so Singapore is not alone)

posted by Symbol @ 3.8.04