Yes, where do i sign up?
How effectively can you really lie low, though? Can you convincingly act like a toddler–not a sitcomish idea of a toddler, but an actual toddler–and keep it up all day, every day? Remember, at that age, you don’t get to be alone all that much. There’s usually someone keeping an eye on you. I have to think that I would slip eventually. Use some gadget I shouldn’t know how to operate, react to something in a way that makes it obvious that I can read, accidentally say “Fuck” if I spill something. And then the scrutiny on me gets even more intense, once it’s clear that I’m “weird” in some way.
I also agree with Scumpup that trying to date teenage girls when I’m mentally and emotionally in my 50s would feel incredibly creepy.
How well do y’all react to being not just bossed around, but micromanaged? You are going to have a decade or more of being bossed by your parents, teachers, babysitters, et. al. I think most people tend to forget just how little autonomy children have. How will your adult mind react to having virtually no say in anything important in your life?
Forgot to add: A couple folks mentioned the possibility of being able to connect again with a love interest. It sounds manipulative as hell to me. Creepy, even. You will not have seen that person in many years by the time you hit the moment you meet. You will be mentally and emotionally much older than s/he. You will be (attempting to) play their emotions based on secret knowledge. In what way is that not a reprehensible act? I guess you could be truthful and tell them about how deeply in love the two of you were in this other life…I foresee restraining orders …
I would absolutely, without any hesitation, to do it. I would not use it to change any macro event or manipulate the stock market or any other abuses. I would just change some things in my past, mistakes that were made:
-I would stop my family, if I could, from moving to New Jersey in 1996.
-I would try to prevent my dad’s bird Louie from dying in 1996 if possible.
-I would prevent my first dog from being killed by a car in 1997.
-I would somehow convince my grandpa to sell his house - the home which had been in our family for over 100 years - to my dad, instead of to strangers, in 1999
-I would stop myself from throwing away the doll my father made for me as a child in a fit of anger in 2014.
-I would try to stop my friend from dying of an overdose of heroin last December.
And lastly, I would just bask in the happiness and tranquility of my middle childhood and be happy seeing my parents and sisters young and happy again, my grandma alive again. I wouldn’t manipulate anyone else’s life other than saving my friend’s life.
Since you know this, you also know enough to, well, not talk and act like Stewie Griffin and get sent to a lab.
Two is also too young. You don’t really have identifiable, permanent memories until you’re three or four, at which point no one will think you’re a monstrous freak for reading, at least. Just a prodigy.
It would at times be a grind, but life is a grind.
I said no, but with some hesitation. Sure, there are things I wish I had done differently. It might be fun too a while. However, there will be new things, maybe more things, that I will wish I’d done differently. Plus, even if i managed to snag my wife, a butterfly effect would almost certainly occur that prevents me from ever seeing my children again. Even though I would likely have new kids I would love, that last part is a deal breaker.
IMO the hardest part would be meeting people for the first time that I’ve met before and pretending I don’t know things about them that I do.
“Oh yeah, just like your step-sister!”
“I never told you about her…”
Apparently I never explained why I voted “yes, absolutely.”
The thing about peers seems silly to me. I am able to form relationships with children now. There are lots of things in my life I would like to do over with the knowledge I currently have, and not make the mistakes of the past. I think any adult could handle any child social situation better, meaning more friends, which means more fun.
The main downside is entertainment. I’d have to wait on the Internet. I have to thread the needle to make sure I still get that modem gift from my teachers or the new computer with a modem from my uncle. Watching what will be reruns for me on TV is annoying, but there are at least a lot of books I’ve not read that existed then that I would like. I could also maybe spend time learning a language like Japanese to get access to so much stuff I wouldn’t get before, so I get more novelty.
The one part that’s tricky is not seeming too smart while in school, while not getting bored. That said, I spent a lot of time self-learning in school, so not learning from the teachers was not an uncommon experience. It would just be much more so. The main thing is not tipping my hand. Fortunately, I think I could bring along the books I mentioned earlier to help stave off boredom. And I could make my own fun.
I guess losing some friends would suck, but I don’t have a lot of really close ones. And, again, the tradeoff is too great. Fortunately, I have no kids, so I’m not losing anyone permanently–they’ll just be different.
As for history: I’d be too afraid of rocking the boat. Keep changes mostly local. I don’t see any way I could stop 9/11, since knowing about it would make me a suspect, and that was the only big thing I considered back then. Now there’s Trump’s election. There I can at least try. If I have time to prepare, I could memorize numbers in those states, and immediately write them down somewhere in a code so I’d remember them (a toddler does have motor functions). It would be something sacred I would keep up with.
The reasoning being that I could then use those numbers ahead of time to show my ability to predict is high (while claiming I’m using actual figures and some fancy formula, so I’m not heralded as a prophet), and then maybe get people to think that Trump is a real threat in those 3 states, and see if that could fix it. I could also maybe throw out suspicion earlier on Russian propaganda sites. And, well, I’d know enough to tell my Facebook friends about the Fake News.
The margins were so thin that I think I might could make a difference. Though it would be crushing if I did all that work and failed.
No, with hesitation.
With what I know now, I couldn’t convincingly act/fake my way through childhood and teen years, and I’d probably kill about a half-dozen people (kids, actually) who took so much delight out of stalking, terrorizing, tormenting, and beating me mercilessly for years on end.
But the idea of a general "do over’ is interesting, and not for the opportunity to retroactively abort (via 12 gauge shotgun) a 1/2 dozen Junior Sociopaths.
Unless I can go back at least a bit smarter (and maybe add a bit taller and more athletic to the list since we’re at it) I don’t know what am I supposed to change exactly. Maybe I’d pick a different career path, but not much else. Otherwise, I’d still be* me.*
I wonder why people would want to repeat their previous life rather than take the opportunity to hit reset and live a new one while retaining the wisdom gained from the last one?
Don’t bother with Powerball numbers as winning the lottery is a great way to call attention to yourself and would seemingly be easy for the butterfly affect change the outcome. Make note of a dozen or so large companies, diversify, and buy early in small enough quantities to stay below the radar of the wish granting shadowy organization’s enemies. What? You didn’t think this scenario places you firmly within the Matrix and all that entails?
Sent from my SM-N910U using Tapatalk
The child question is an interesting one. I actually believe that the Celtling - meaning the core of her, her spirit - would have been my child no matter when I had her or even what Father I chose for her. Reliving my childhood would be walking back through hell. Even with my increased understanding there would still be all the beatings and insults and just downright cruelty to get through again.
But given the chance to give her a better start with a healthier father (or a non-present sperm bank donor) I would walk through it all again on her behalf.
And I would arrange for money to be easy for us. Life has plenty of other problems, if I can take that one away then I will.
With your increased adult-level understanding, you’d realize you have options for dealing with it. Example, every time you get a beating that leave marks you know you can call the police/social services; I would think you could get the misery to end much sooner than it ended in your current life.
A nice thought, but I, personally, am not so certain that I could get any of the 1970s-era adults to give more of a shit all over again than I could the first time around.
At best, I’d have the intelligence/experience to maybe make a few of them disappear, w/o making myself a person of interest, much less the prime suspect; but I wouldn’t bet my do-over on it.
In suburban Virginia of the 1970’s? No. That would have resulted in more beatings, nothing else. And I was on my own at 17; don’t think I could have managed it any sooner. Well, I suppose I could have found a guy to marry me at 16, but that would not necessarily be an improvement.
Absolutely not. Even if I had perfect memory of everything and could make ‘better’ decisions, butterfly effect stuff would make it impossible to avoid completely changing my future in unpredictable ways. And I happen to like my current life, so I wouldn’t want to jeopardize it by flipping the table.