What if you could travel back in time or see what's in the future? a lot of people would desperately want to return in the past and make different choices. Maybe for the better, because who would want to go back and make things worse? or maybe you could have a glimpse of what's ahead of you, if you'll make it, 20 or more years from now. Recently, I've finished the first story out of nine compelling short stories in Ted Chiang's book, Exhalation. The story revolves around a Portal through time, a merchant & an alchemist. Honestly, the whole book reminds me of the Netflix Series, Black Mirror.
But I can't discuss the whole book, I just want to give thoughts about the first few pages. A Merchant named Fuwaad ibn Abbas was brought before the caliph in medieval Baghdad to whom he tells a story about his experience of meeting an old man who knew something about wondrous stuff and Alchemy. The Man introduced him to a Portal, a gate through time that could take you either 20 years into the past or 20 years into the future. Fuwaad entered the gate after hearing the three stories of those who had gone through with it. He hoped that he could somehow changed his past mistakes and have second chances through his atonement but he had discovered something far more important than changing the events. Our present selves are the result of all the choices we've made. Based on philosophical observations, we cannot change the past because changing the past could inadvertently trigger a chain of events. We can only hope that imaginatively entering a portal into the past or future we could learn "fully" about what we might not fully know."Nothing erases the past. There is repentance, there is atonement, and there is forgiveness. That is all, but that is enough." - Ted Chiang
