Going forward in the past

The speaker is reading a novel about a man who goes back in time to prevent his daughter's death. This makes the speaker question if they would go back in time and make different choices. They reflect on their past relationships and the possibility of starting over. They consider going back to childhood but realize it would bring conflict with their mother. The speaker contemplates the purpose of life and the idea of experiencing it differently in multiple lifetimes. They mention the TV show "Quantum Leap" and how they have changed since watching it. They wonder if they would want to start over and have a different experience in life. Currently, they are observing their own physical deterioration and preparing for what lies ahead. I'm just in the middle of reading a book, a novel, about a way of bringing memory, bringing memories, going back into memories, really experiencing the memory of the past and then discovering that actually it's not a memory, that you are really in the past and are having a second chance at doing things differently. So the main character in the book, his daughter was killed in a hit-and-run accident ten years previously. He finds himself back in the moment about ten minutes before his daughter leaves to go to Dairy Queen where this takes place en route and is able to run out and stop her from being killed. And he then has to live his life from that point forward, he doesn't go back to the present, he goes forward from there. And I started to think, if I could go back into the past and do things differently, not what would I do, but how far back would I go? At what point would I go back and go forward from there? And I wasn't actually sure. Obviously the choices that I made I wouldn't have to make, so it would be very important which point do I go back to? Do I continue to make the same choices? Will I feel like doing the same things? Or knowing that I had already done certain things and how they developed and which way they went, I might not feel like doing them again. It would be like doing them again, had already done them. All the choices that I make, well they've led me to here, so obviously the chances of being here again are almost zero, because other opportunities, different, those moments when I went left, when I could have gone right, I might go right, just because I'd already been left. And I don't want to repeat the experiences I've had, because ultimately they haven't led me to where I am satisfied. I don't have a family, I don't have a partner, I don't even have a daughter. I don't have a life. I'm not fulfilled. Yes I enjoy, if you could call it that, the freedom I suppose you could say I have, to be able to live a simple life, come and go as I please, own my own space, my own little room. I live in a part of the world that I feel, that feels like home. So none of that feels wrong, none of that actually is wrong, and I've, before I decided to leave and find others, be with others, who I thought would give me a way of living a different kind of life, which they did, before I did that I lived here. Before I lived here in a van alone, I had a family, and although that was, there was so much wrong in that, there was also right, like many people come to understand, no experience is wasted, there's value, there's learning, there's evolving, that's what we're here for, that's what life is. But I don't think I would make the same choices, so how far back do I go, where do I begin again from, do I have to go all the way back to childhood, or do I have to go to where I am first aware of my own independence, can make my own decisions, so am I at the end of school, beginning of college, where I've made a decision to do this or that, who am I, can I be him again, I can't be him again, I'll still be me, because I'll have all of his experience, all of my experience, but it will just be back in that moment where I go forward from there, so I wouldn't be him, I would be me as him, and therefore I would make completely different choices to the ones he made in his naivety, in his inexperience, even though at the time I thought I knew what I was doing, I was just simply basing what I did on what I felt I wanted to experience at the time, for whatever reason one does what one does, how one thinks what one thinks, and acts in the way one acts, that's what I was doing, but clearly if I was to go back to a point where I could go forward from there, I would be different, where do I start from, my first relationship, my second relationship, all of those could be different from my perspective today, if I think back on them, and I only have vague recollections of the time, would I do them differently, would it matter, how could an, who was essentially an immature Simon, deal with those people who would be the same as that immature Simon dealt with, as the Simon who's 59, how I would be in a sense so capable of manipulating in a way that I absolutely wasn't yet able to be, that I would control things in a way that would be, was hard to imagine, now part of the rules of this novel for this person is that you can't take advantage of what you know took place, couldn't go out and buy apple stock, or knowing that something is going to happen prepared, you can't take advantage of it directly like that, I'm not sure what's going to happen because this has only just happened to the character in the book, you just have to live your life from there, make your choices, make your, whatever it is, day by day, move forward, it may be that the memory of having lived life before fades, I might discover that's what the novel does, but from my imagination as I'm talking about it now, the fact that there's a parallel reality that I'm no longer having to follow will fade because the reality that I'm in moment by moment, day by day, becomes my only reality, that would make sense, so from the decision to return to a certain point in my lifetime, I just simply start to live it again as if I've never lived it before, making whatever decisions, actions seem appropriate, but yet having more of me there through all of the experiences that I've had that have created the version that is actually talking to you right now, but have him transposed into the past as a younger self, how would I do it differently and where would I start the journey again from? I wouldn't want to go back to childhood because I remember being very aware of being powerless, that my parents, my mother in particular, had a control over me that I struggled to deal with, I felt older than I was able to deal with life were I in a situation where I had the opportunity to do so differently, but I couldn't because I was just a child and seen as a child, so I wouldn't need to go back that far because there would be simply conflict, my mother wouldn't be able to accept what I did, she couldn't accept what I did when I was an immature Simon, she certainly wouldn't be able to accept me being an adult Simon in an immature body. Yes, so it's an interesting dilemma, I wonder how far back you would go if you had the opportunity, if there was any reason, would there be any reason to go back again, not just because you might think well I'd like to live with my mum again, I'd like to be her daughter, so I would go back as far as I could to have all of that again, you might think that would be a good thing, but then I suppose you would, if you were to do that, you would know that she would die at some point, maybe you would be ready for it, maybe by that point you would be able to, you would have made plans for, you would have prepared to be able to be autonomous and without having to go the experience of Frank, you could do that completely differently, but for me it would be just doing it again, and maybe that's why perhaps they say when life is over, back in spirit, back in the awareness that this life experience was essentially a dream, that you choose to do it again because now you want to see if, you want to make, have the opportunity to experience it differently, it's a strange one because if that's true and that life has been experienced many, many times over and over under different circumstances, different gender, different experience in different places, all the complexity of what one could imagine could come from a kind of awareness of what the experience, what I'd want to get from the experience, then having the experience of forgetting that I made that choice and going through life and seeing actually what takes place, and only afterwards remembering all of that's who I was, that's what I chose, and then looking at how did it go, did I experience what I thought I would, how did it, how did it turn out, did I love, was I hurt, did I hurt, did I, and so on, all of that stuff which is what life is. So that could encourage a complete experience starting again from childhood because that's how it has to work, or maybe it doesn't, maybe there's a way to, for a soul to enter a life kind of like a quantum leap experience where you just turn up and discover you are this in this situation with these people and then slowly get on with it. I'm talking about my own timeline but obviously that is joining a different timeline, one where there was no past up until that point and then there is a continuous movement into the future. I've always liked that idea, I always liked the original concept of quantum leap. I don't watch the new version, I started to when it first came out and I didn't like it. I did go back and repeat watching some of the earlier original episodes from the 80s and I couldn't get very far with it because the production value, the script, and so on was just too weak. I'm not the same person who enjoyed that when it was current and I couldn't really enjoy it again because I've moved on, I'm different now. So the question is would I want to do this life over again, start again, have another experience, have another go of it and see what I make of it this time? Has the me that I've come to understand as myself but do it again? I don't know, I'm not sure, maybe, why not? What else have I got to do? But currently, essentially, I'm sort of just doing time observing any deterioration that takes place and compensating, dealing with it, recognizing that at some point the deterioration, the physical deterioration, will be more limiting. You're experiencing that, things that you can't do, that you would do, that you can no longer do, that's a difficult path you have to accept, you have to compensate and adjust and recognize that you just can't be who you thought you were. Preparing for disability, preparing for death essentially, deterioration. And who are you in that process? How do you become who you are by the effects of what takes place? How long do you have to do this for until you can let go of your body and not have to be concerned? There are times when I feel I quite like to let go of it, that it's heavy, that this eating, shitting thing is just annoying, and yet I still don't eat just for nutrition and health, I still fill myself up with stuff that isn't good for me, as if this is real, that I am the body, this is all there is. And in a sense, that's true, this is all there is, I don't know any other reality, any other existence, I don't have astral projection experiences, I don't leave my body during the night, some of the things you've just talked about, and others who can do things much more consciously, I don't experience those things, I don't take DMT or Ayahuasca, I'm not having psychedelic experiences that are constantly reminding me that there's more to life than this meat suit. I think I know that to be true, and I've had those experiences before, but in this present moment I am not connected to any of that, there are only memories, and the memory doesn't contain the experience, only a flavour, only a scent of what took place. And I can't escape, I don't take drinking drugs and stuff to avoid the experience of the present, I practice experiencing the present, being in the present, being aware of who I am and why I do things, and what I think, and how I'm feeling, and I talk about it often, and share it. And that's what I do, day by day by day by day, time seems to move incredibly quickly, even though there's very little happening, essentially, but it seems to move really quickly, it's hard to describe, but actually suddenly I'm at the weekend again, and then I'm at the weekend again, and then I'm at the weekend again, it just moves so quickly, and weeks and months have passed, and nothing much has actually happened. Normally time moves quickly for when things are flowing fast, experience, lots is going on, and there's no time even for certain things because it's moving so fast, whereas I've got time for anything that I can imagine, essentially, loads of time to fill, sometimes often I just fill it with playing a game, just because, well, it requires me to focus on it, and it just moves things forward. When I'm watching a film or a show that I really like, I can be lost within it for the two hours or hour that it takes, and feel differently after it's over, might watch another one, can binge several episodes of something I have that I like at once, I have the time to do that, but time moves incredibly quickly for me. I think that many people experience that as they get older, it's not a slowing down, people feel like it's time to retire, well, I've essentially already retired, and then they don't know what to do with themselves, you know, they might garden, very nice, they might go fishing, very nice, but if they've led a very active life, what do you do with yourself as you have all this time? So, for them, time slows down, they just don't know what to do to fill it. I don't have any problem in the moment, experiencing being in this moment, I just make a choice to do what feels like something I want to do, or can do, in this moment, and do it, until I feel like I've had enough of it, and then do something else. It's a very strange thing, life, I think, especially for somebody like me who seems to have learned that the vast majority of it is meaningless, that I don't have to experience it continuously, I'm not trapped and caught, I'm awake, okay, that's great, I'm awake, but now what? I'm awake into the realization that I don't really have any beliefs, I don't have a faith, I don't know anything, but I do know that this isn't all there is, and that's as far as I can take it, and I ought to essentially look after my body, but at the same time I realize that it will deteriorate no matter what I do, and is it just about longevity, keeping it going, quantity over quality, or quantity, just got to keep it going no matter what, I can't end it, I can't kill it, not directly anyway, I've sort of had a go, and maybe I am still to some extent passively killing it, passively suiciding, but that's not really something I'm consciously aware of, and if I notice that something is happening that I'm, as a result of actions I'm taking that are negative, I'll stop it, I'll change it, I might not want to, but I will, because I can't not, I can't deliberately cause my life to be harder when I could have made it different, and so if I was to go back and do something again, I would have to do it better, I wouldn't have any choice, because I would simply see a better solution than I saw before, and I would move in that direction, I'd have no choice, and as a result life would be different, hopefully better, it would still be full of challenges and difficulties in a sense, because that's what life is, they would just be different challenges and different difficulties, and that might bring a smile to my face, because I'll know I'll be making better choices, and I'll have better relationships, and I'll be a better person, at least that's what I'm imagining, so if I was given the opportunity to go back and do it again, I think I'd like to take it, I'd like to take it, but I'm still not sure where I would go back to, perhaps I would want to leave it up to those who might know better than me, that I'm not all I can be, I'm not all I am, and if I were all I am, if I was this whole spiritual being that they say we are, and not this fragmented small spark of him, having this physical experience called human, I might know exactly where I need to go back to, I might know exactly what my life could be again, and then simply find myself doing it, and might also understand the necessity of completely forgetting that I'd made the choice to do that, and just do it, and see what turned up this time, see where I ended up this time, see how I felt by the end of it. I think, as many have said, it's all about love, and involvement, and connection, and feeling connected, and the joy that comes from sharing with others in a way that feels wonderful. I've experienced moments of that, I know that there's nothing for me realer than that, but I haven't been able to hold onto it, it's like trying to hold onto sand through your fingers, it just slips through, and it doesn't matter what you do, you're not going to keep it. Maybe there's a way to keep it, maybe there isn't, I don't know, would I try again? Yeah, I think so.