Doing Time Again

First published in Column 8 on the 8^th July, 1992

Last week I was writing on a rather amazing theory Stephen Hawking once proposed but later wisely abandoned. He said (in the simplest terms) if the Universe stopped expanding and began to contract, time would start running backwards. Somehow everything that had ever happened would be replayed in reverse.

The idea of reversal has some charming, but also some worrying, features.

People would shrink from old age to childhood until they were ready to re-enter the womb (ouch!) of someone who was officially younger than them. Death would no longer be the thing people feared, but birth. Undeath and unbirth…

Undeath would be a time for rejoicing – in fact, the joyous wakes of the Irish would at last make sense. At undeath all our separate parts, exploded or crushed or maimed or merely buried, would come together as though they’d never de-parted. The metaphysics of this aspect of reversal, not to mention the theological implications, are not only beyond comprehension but also the length of this column.

If hindsight (which would of course now be foresight) came with the package, we’d know how long we were going to be around for. But our sense of security would probably shatter when we discovered the process of unbirth.

The end of the line for all of us would be the equivalent of senility: gradual loss of intelligence and ability, lack of control over our bodies, and worst (?) of all, over the handling of our assets.

Who’d want to go from a wage to pocket money – (though I know that’s virtually what a lot of present-day people have done!). And talking of wages, in reversal we’d find ourselves each payday paying our bosses – after retailers had refunded our cash for the goodies we returned. We’d have real cause to think our wages were decreasing.

The process of reversal makes you wonder whether we’d be able to think differently, or whether even our thoughts would tortuously wend their way back whence they came. Locked into thought patterns as they became simpler seems at first sight a horror, but wouldn’t there be some advantages?

We’d go from complex emotional thoughts in our relationships to ones that were disarmingly simple. First loves lived over again. We’d gradually head back to the halcyon days of childhood when, for many of us, things were simple and uncomplicated, and responsibility unheard-of. Those who hankered for the good old days would have a chance to prove their worth, and might find themselves eating their words.

If we were forced without choice to play out everything we’d ever done, we’d see the consequences of our actions before we’d initiated them. Knowing how avoidable our actions were, would we regret what we knew we’d set in motion?

Would the Chinese begin to read their books forwards? Would frontchat hurt us as we played frontgammon? And would we dare to call certain sporting gentlemen, ‘backwards?’

The thought of re-doing my years in reverse is too tiring. The last ten days going the right way have been enough. There were two rehearsals, a son’s birthday party (which exhausted my wife), the same son’s dancing exam, two days of stocktaking, two dress rehearsals, and a concert.

Who’d have energy enough to go back and do all that in reverse, especially when you’d not long left your 50^th birthday behind? Or do I mean ‘in-front?’

There are some interesting ideas explored here, some of which F Scott Fitzgerald may have considered when he wrote The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Certainly, while the movie was interesting (more so the second time, I found) it didn’t really go into the true difficulties of life lived backwards, and I think, if it had explored more of the implications, it possibly would have been a horror movie rather than a romantic fantasy.