Hey — It’s Toffer.
I was stuck. This was expected — traveling in time has its limits. I just needed to recalibrate the time machine.
Time Traveling 101 taught me that when stuck, simply figure out the destination, the starting point, the path, and simply encode it to the machine. Basic stuff.
Or is it?
Estimated read time: 5 minutes
So I started with the destination and turned the knob to 20 years into the future. As soon as I stopped at 20, everything suddenly went black.
“Seriously?” my wife whispered, trying to wake me up.
My eyes focused on red chairs, people clapping, three large letters on stage — I was at a TED conference. Not a TEDx or anything local — I was at the big-deal TED Talk, with the custom invite and all, and like most of the people there, I was going to speak, too.
“You ready?” my wife asked, making sure I was present.
In an instant, it all made sense. My talk was about my relationship with Time and how not to waste it. My dream.
“I am ready.”
Then it was dark again. But I didn't black out this time. I was floating.
“Toffer's work has impacted my life because it helped me achieve my potential. He helped me do more with my life. He helped me realize what really mattered to me, and his work helped me build a life I love.”
People were crying. It seemed that I had fast-forwarded much further into the future and traveled to a eulogy at my funeral.
Black.
I was back. Stuck, again, but back. My vision cleared to see the knob showing 50 years forward. Apparently, my life would end by 2075.
I found myself involuntarily shaking. But it wasn't fear of death. In fact, it wasn’t fear at all. After seeing those moments of my life in the future, my fear of failure, of judgment, my self-doubt, wasn’t there anymore. I was excited.
Knowing that it’s not only possible but probable to achieve such things detached me from sticking within the box of what I’ve already done or what society tells me to do. It was freeing.
I turned back the knob to just a year from now: 2025.
Suddenly, I found myself in our dining room. I was writing, or more like staring at a blank Google Doc.
“What's wrong?” asked my wife across the table, clearly seeing my struggle.
“I'm confused! There is nothing in this book that’ll be useful to anyone,” I said.
“You know, Toff, you can’t read the label from inside the bottle,” she replied, smiling and returning to her reading.
The scene faded once more.
I think she was giving me a compliment but didn’t want to just say it. She was implying that I couldn’t see what she and other people saw — that I was writing something very special that would definitely be useful to my readers.
That was nice.
...to be continued.
Your Friend in Time,
Toffer