To thine own self be a liar

After a series of travel posts, I think it is time I get back to my core content: ridiculous musings about the world which have very little value to anyone but provide a release valve so that I don't corner my few remaining friends and tell them dumb thoughts at any given moment.

I blog to save those friendships.

ANyway, yesterday was the Superbowl, which was neither super, nor shaped like a bowl. Discuss. So I watched. By the end of the game, some team won. This often happens and I'm generally at peace with that. I subsequently saw a news article about how a particular person in the sports world tweeted his prediction for the game and predicted the final score exactly. That's awesome, right? Then, a young man's fancy turns to time travel.

"Wouldn't it be great," I thought to myself, for none else was near, "if I could watch the game, and then travel back in time to alert myself to the final score so that I could bet on it and make a bajillion dollars. Or maybe, I could just make a very public prediction, be right and gain fame and fortune through supposed psychich abilities! And the joke's on them because I'm not psychic -- I just have mastered time travel!"

Good thoughts, all, and enough to keep me from focusing on more pressing problems like driving a car, or breathing. But then I really started thinking the process all the way through. Imagine if I'm sitting in my living room, as I am wont to do, and suddenly me-from-the-future pops in and says "quick, write this down...the lottery numbers for tomorrow are _________" with the blank replaced by actual numbers as the lottery rarely announces blanks as winners. What would I do, confronteds with this new and life-changing information? Would I run out to the local lottery-store (do those things have names?) and buy me a ticket and play the aforesaid numbers?

Wait...that would be scanned.

Here's the thing: What if I'm lying. To me. Now why would I do that? Because deep down, and also in a variety of areas closer to the surface, I'm a jerk. Wouldn't it be a great practical joke to use the time travel to mess with me? And it isn't like I would be doing it just to be spiteful, because I hate to see ANYONE succeed, even me. I can make it into an object lesson about taking shortcuts and not earning things, or cheating the system. I'm not saying I WOULD do that, but I could, and be in a morally advantageous position, looking down on myself. And then, my current loser-self will continue the trend, armed with a newfound bitterness and self loathing (which can be externalized!)

The bottom line is that I know myself well enough to know not to trust myself. I might be both too nice and too evil for my own good. Or bad. I'm not sure.

So if I show up to any of you and claim to be from the future, you can feel free to admire my technical/scientific acumen, but don't trust any information I give you that you might benefit from. But you never know: I'm a mean enough person to tell you the truth when you most expect it.