It's no secret that I am fascinated with time travel. Yeah, it could be used to go back in time and fix atrocities that societies have experienced throughout history, however, I'm pretty sure that anything that got fixed would just create more problems. All those horrible events in history, we supposedly learned from and had they not happened, we would be doomed to make the mistakes anyway because they had to happen in order for us to develop the tools we need to avoid them in the future. At least, we are supposed to.
Of course, I would use it to go back in time and see the Commodores play live and probably go to the US festival to see Van Halen play. Another good use would be to go back to 1978 on a Saturday and watch cartoons and then maybe go pick up some awesome vinyl and a really nice hi-fi. This all looks good on paper, but what if you never moved beyond those wants and needs from the past? Would you truly be able to move forward into your adult life. It would be like being 30 and still wanting that Millenium Falcon or Evel Kneivel wind up toy that you put on layaway at Mervyn's. Or, the guy who goes out and gets a kickass El Camino this year and leans on the tailgate smoking cigarettes while he listens to Bad Company in the parking lot at work. Let it go. Check the baggage and never claim it when you get to your destination. Just walk away. You have to let these things go to evolve into an adult and develop wants and needs for new, adult things. I think these adult things are babies, cars, houses and other things like that.
According to Maslow's hierachy of needs, the Millenium Falcons and Cabbage Patch Kids develop into Physical, Security, Social, Ego and Self-Actualization. In order to get to self-actualization, the other needs must be satisfied first. Seems easy. Air, water, food seems like a no brainer. It should be like the 200 points on the SAT for writing your name, but what the fuck do you do when this is your stumbling block? You are pretty much getting your shoelace stuck on the starting block when the starter pistol goes off. Peers and contemporaries start to pull away, leaving you far behind with one shoe untied. To compound the problem, say you start backwards and work from the top down. It would be like building the roof of a house first, which makes it nearly impossible to build a sturdy foundation to support that roof and everything just falls apart.
On the other hand, say that you take the time to go back and get all of those things that you wanted, which to a child or teen seem like needs. Tickle-Me-Elmo's were the equivalent of air and water for many kids a few years ago and in their eyes, these were needs. All you had to do to see evidence of this was look down an aisle in a toy store and see the mom or dad trying to drag a crying kid out of the aisle. Or, for the teen example, you go back and make out with Alyssa Milano from Who's The Boss and imagine how pissed Tony Danza is going to be when he finds out. This also probably leads to the adult behaviors that you can see in front of a Fry's the night before the X Box 360 comes out. The thing is, these guys did get and still have that Millenium Falcon. They probably still play with it, too. So, you fulfill those needs in a modern setting with the same desire even though, the boxes smell stale and the same luster is not physically there, but you see it. It would be like dating Erin Gray now and seeing her as she was on Buck Rogers. People would look at you like you were dating an old lady, but in your eyes she would be walking around in a white jumpsuit and heels. Would this give you closure and allow you to move out your state of self-imposed-frozen-in-time-crutch?
I tried to think of anything that I wanted in high school that I didn't get and I think it would break down to the Seve Vai signature Ibanez. They only made 777 of them and each one was numbered and signed by Steve Vai. They had a DiMarzio PAF pickup on the neck and bridge and a single coil Dimarzio in the middle position. They were desert sun yellow and had a handle cut into the body. In retrospect, they were kind of horrid. The thing is, I remember one Christmas, my mom went above and beyond and tracked one of these down for me. I was probably 15 years old that Christmas. I had snuck around and found it under the bed in my parent's bedroom and my bedroom became like an ER waiting room while I paced waiting to get information on a loved one except my loved one was guaranteed to recover and have some kind of bionic super power in one week's time. Christmas morning, I was in no rush as I sauntered up to the tree and saw the guitar case and opened it up and found a pink, Japanese Fender strat inside. You could almost hear an audible Buwah-Buwah. I think that was the moment that I learned about sure things, as well as taking things for granted which I have excelled at ever since. I think the saying is never count your eggs before they have been cubed.
On top of everything, my mom had traded in my first guitar that I ever owned (a red BC Rich Warlock) to get the pink guitar, so you can probably sprinkle a little loss on top. I'm not playing a victim or feeling sorry for myself, those are pointless exercises of hurting yourself and people will wait in line for the chance to hurt you, so you really don't need to do the work or take the enjoyment away from them. Had I got the guitar that I wanted, my life would be no different. I am sure of this. I was 15 for chrissakes. That guitar was a little much for a guy who was having a hard time playing Smoke On the Water, which I think they are training monkeys to play right now. What I missed at the time and can see now is that I should have felt gratitude and love towards my mom trying real hard to get me what I wanted and then when that couldn't be done to try her best even though she was risking disappointing her spoiled brat kid. This would have set a foundation for building the second and third tiers of Maslow's pyramid, both the security and social part of it. Throw Christmas dinner underneath those and I would have been on track to be 60% there.
So, when you find that pair of shoes you have been looking for forever and the store has the wrong sizes and you try them on anyway, hoping they will fit, don't be pissed off that the shoes don't fit. Also, don't buy and wear the shoes that don't fit trying to trick yourself into believing that they are comfortable and they are for you. If they don't fit, they are not and never will be. Just be happy knowing that there is a pair of shoes out there somewhere that they make in your size and there is even a chance that you may find them. In the event that you don't find them, just be happy that they exist at all and that should give you the hope and faith you need to get through everything in between.
This is the point where you become aware that there are doers and sayers. The doers don't need to say anything and let their actions and their histories speak for themselves. Sayers have blogs.
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