If
you could go back in a time machine, what would you change? This is a
question humans have pondered for a long time. If you asked me that
when I was a younger man, I would probably talk about a girl who I liked
in college who I never had the guts to ask out. I would have wanted to
go back and ask her out.
I
conducted an informal poll of random Americans, and the most common
answer to the question, "If you could go back in a time machine, what
would you change?" is "9/11." By this, they are referring of course to
the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City on
September 11th, 2001. When I ask them how they would change things,
their answers vary. Some would call the White House, or major airlines,
and warn them. Others would call the victims and tell them not to
board the planes. Still others would board the planes and physically
beat the shit out of the terrorists. Would any of these things have
worked? It's an interesting metaphysical question.
I
too would like to go back to 9/11, but I would like to go back to
September 11th, 2008, because that was the day before my favorite
writer, David Foster Wallace, hanged himself. I would like to go back
and tell him how much he changed my life, saved it even. And even if I
couldn't stop him from offing himself, I could at least tell him what he
meant to me.
