But That Was When I Ruled the World

Allow me a small moment of English major indulgence. There's a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley called "Ozymandias" about a traveler who happens upon a decrepit and worn away statue in the middle of the desert. On the pedestal appear the words, "My name is Ozymandias, King of kings: Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair." Unfortunately for Ozzie, the poem concludes by saying that aside from the rubble of the statue, there's nothing to look at. Time has long since destroyed the works he speaks of, and Ozymandias is just a name on a slab of rock in the desert. Only "the lone and level sands stretch far away."

This is one of my favorite poems. The major theme is that no matter how great our achievements or how much of an impact we think we've had on the world, time and history will eventually forget all of us. It's a real pick-me-up! Anyway (returning to the less poetic real world), the poem reminds me of a childhood fantasy I had back in elementary school. When we impressionable little buggers were introduced to the concept of the time capsule, I found the whole concept intriguing. We were supposed to gather objects that we thought best represented our generation, put them into some sort of sealed container, and then bury it for future generations to see. The whole idea was completely stupid in retrospect, but I loved it. My thoughts immediately turned to exploitation. Our teacher told us that this time capsule could change the way that future generations perceived us. I thought this a great opportunity to make ourselves look good. After all, if we threw in a Calculus book or the collected works of Shakespeare and left out our third-grade collections of slap bracelets and pogs, future generations might look back and say, "Wow! Our parents were really fucking smart!"

Of course, the class didn't take this approach, but the thought was still in my head. Once in middle school, we learned about the concept of history being based on whatever archival materials could be found, and these are often incomplete records. Once again I was presented with more evidence of the possibility of changing the future's opinion of me. Suppose I could bury a book in my backyard that purported to be a first-hand account of how I conquered lands and ruled the world for decades! Perhaps in a few thousand years, my book could be the only record of our era. History books of the 44th century would be filled with mentions of JP the Great (or JP the Conquerer if they'd prefer). The idea was very compelling.

But my fantasy of becoming a faux historical global monarch was only the first step. I soon realized that I could never reap the benefits of such a scam, so I thought my plan needed a boost. That boost came when I saw Back to the Future, Part II. As you'll recall, at the end of the movie, Doc Brown inadvertently uses the DeLorean to go back in time to the Old West. As soon as he vanishes, Marty receives a letter from Doc that was sent with instructions to deliver the letter to him sixty years in the future. Marty then goes back in time to rescue Doc Brown. From the Doc's perspective, he sends the letter and Marty suddenly shows up. The miracles of time travel save the day again!

I wanted to try the same trick. I figured I could put an addendum in my manifesto indicating my current date and location and instructing future time travelers to come pick me up. But I couldn't wait. I grabbed a blank journal, and that became my first line. "To all readers of this document: I am JP and I am writing this on (whatever the date was) at (whatever time it was) from (I provided latitude and longitute coordinates for my house... we calculated them for a science class once). Should you be reading this, you must use your time travel gear to retrieve me from the past. I look forward to seeing you, my noble descendants!" (I'm paraphrasing of course). I got about three lines down before I got distracted by a Pop Tart or Card Sharks or some other such nonsense, and I never finished my temporal ruse. I decided that since no one showed up, either they never found my journal or the future never discovers time travel (and if that's the case, I'm sorely disappointed by science).

Several years later, I was cleaning out my closet and stumbled across that very journal. It was completely empty save for those few lines. I scoffed at my own immature notions and threw the journal in the trash. That's gotta be a predestination paradox or a time loop or something. I was the reason that no one ever came back in time to find me!! Curse my closet-cleaning day!

Many of you may scoff at the idea of a single book with undefined sources being able to alter people's ideas about events millennia after the fact. But then you forget that organized religion has been pulling the same stunt for ages!

That's right, everyone!! I'm comparing myself to Jesus!!

If only Jesus had demanded his own time machine, we might have funded our own Quantum Leap program by now.

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JP: The Once and Future King (with apologies to Elvis)!