The new semester is upon me! One of my new classes is Civilization Literature, and on the first day, my professor gave us very interesting food for thought.
“Congratulations!” he told us, “You’ve just invented a time machine. And now, you’re stuck in Ancient Egypt forever.”
He asked us to think—assuming we survived the initial encounter with ancient Egyptians—why our new lives would be unbearable, being forced to live as a modern person in ancient Egypt, with no way to return home.
Various people gave out different answers: the language barrier, the cultural differences, the technological differences, the way we would be treated. He nodded at all of this, and then eventually told us the answer.
“All of what you said doesn’t matter. Humans are just as smart as ever. Eventually you’d pick up the language. You could find new clothes. You might even start to worship their gods, out of habit and assimilation, if nothing else. You’d even get used to their level of technology. So why would you be so unhappy?”
He gave us the answer.
“Because you have perspective. Perspective that you cannot, no matter what, ever even hope to explain to someone else. No matter how close you get to the people, the land, and the culture, you will be literally thousands of years away from them because of what you know.”
It clicked for everyone after that.
It didn’t matter. Even if you assimilated beautifully into the culture and became royalty, even if you walked to the outskirts of the massive ancient empire and lived out your days as a simple peasant.
You would be a dog at the vet who suddenly and irreversibly gained an understanding of where you are, why you’re there, and why that ceiling light is making that high-pitched buzzing sound. And it’s impossible for you to either impart that wisdom on the dogs around you or go back to the way it was before, when you were content to ignore the buzzing in favor of some pats on the head.
I thought that was interesting. The horror of time travel wasn’t about any of the usual tropes: it was the truest and deepest human fear—being alone, surrounded by people.
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