"From Time"

"That's why 
you trust me— 
I know you been through 
more than most of us.

So what are you… 
What are you, what are you so afraid of? —
Darling you…
You give, 
but you cannot take love."

Research, redesign and parallel universes

The popular belief that a product must be thought of from the ground up while being conceptualized is absolutely correct. Popular belief often begs to be corrected, but in the aforementioned case, the practice that has come to be exercised over the years is fairly appropriate.

Usually, of course.

Such a practice, or any popular practice for that matter, becomes widely accepted over long term use, reuse, getting broken and shattered to pieces, and then getting taped up and glued together before being reused. Again.
Any thing that a person makes goes through multiple iterations of improvement upon improvement, evolution, to the point of quasi-saturation – a point where a product appears to lie in a popularly accepted status quo.

But that has hardly ever been the case.

Products change – inch by inch, or even at a molecular level, at varying speeds; from weeks to months to years to generations and further lapses of time. But they don't change because they're getting old, wrinkly and need medication. They change because we make them change. We shave off what we don't need, and do what was previously difficult or impossible to do so that we can consistently arrive at a better solution. Every iteration that was the best at its time gets succeeded by something even better.

All of this happens so naturally that we often find ourselves asking why we couldn't have thought of something so simple earlier.

But we couldn't have. In such a seemingly natural evolution, products follow a path of tackling a need or a problem that can be alleviated. We use the best resources available to us at the time and attempt to balance ease of development and its economic worth.

Consider, however, that all of these decisions and the evolution a product underwent happened only in one universe – the one that you're reading this in. Perhaps, in another parallel universe, maybe we approached the same product differently. We attempted to tackle the need and diminish the problem using an entirely different set of resources.
In that universe, the product would evolve differently, too.

Even though popular belief agrees to thinking of a product concept from the ground up, we often limit ourselves to thinking of current solutions when attempting to redesign something.

While that's somewhat of a good practice – it does let us explore what options we already have; helps us avoid re-inventing the wheel – it also tends to put us inside a box. The same materials. The same UI grids. The same patterns.

When the objective is to redesign the wheel, I believe it is more important to understand why the wheel exists as it does today. What made it evolve to what it has come to? What? Do we really want to put air inside the thing? Have you seen the roads? Oh man, that turn on exit 51 has some of the worst potholes in the history of forever.

So when you're thinking from the ground up, dig a little deeper and go a little under-ground. When you're redesigning, in the words of Mr. Einstein, be "passionately curious."

Dear mom and dad,

Please call me back
Tell me nice things;
How to live life
and be good at that.

Tell me I should eat,
Tell me I should read;
Wake me up tomorrow,
To 9 AM, I plead.

I wonder what you're up to,
And I guess I needed to be alone
Needed to spend some time
to realise the truth about home.

The missing isn't throbbing,
but it sure is there.
How our trips to the mall,
would be with fanfare.

Growing up is a lie –
We're all already grown.
Is the test of time present
to see who lasts alone?

Time travails

Time travel is, by far, one of the most high priority items on my to-do list.

However, time travel is pretty vague when displayed as a simple couple of words. I would've crossed it off my list, but right when I take my pencil there, it just appears to deviate more and more towards an ambiguous umbrella term.

I would've also crossed it off if I had fewer items on my to-do list.

Time is, I believe, the one thing that shouldn't have had wings. Because when it flies, it soars. To the point that if it were rain, it'd pour. 

The unending shortage of time, by catch-22, makes time travel appear on top of my list again. It makes me ponder the very possibility of the umbrella term in this pouring rain of flying time. And it makes me wonder why I'd choose to travel to the past out of all places.

Looking back always comes drenched in fluctuations of peak experiences of happiness and unending pits of despair. Most of my rationale for desiring to travel to the past comes reinforced with the feeling of being able to correct whatever I believe to have "messed up." If life were more like a certain social networking site, misdemeanours would be posts, and walls could be wiped clean at whim – as was pointed out by a very excellent, like-minded amigo. 

"Go back and delete them, just in case it would ever be looked at again." 

However, everything that has happened to and/or with us; everything it is that we've experienced, committed, and been a part of is what makes us what we are today – wiser, amongst other things. Unless, you want to make the same mistake over and over again, in which case, please, take your time. But do learn eventually. 

Additionally, if I were to consider the scientific aspect of things and take chronology into account, the butterfly effect comes to be factored in. Erasing portions of the past could lead to a future so drastically different – so many light years away from whatever you've imagined it'd lead to – that your whole plan would be obsolete. If, that is, you even remember the plan in this newly chanced upon future.

This, thus, leads to the possibility that we can travel back in time considering that our actions and events are fixed in permanency, due to which we are able to partake in the activity of time travel. Considering that, even if we do go back, we'd do the exact same things again, and never realise that we've gone back in time at all.

But you've been informed all wrong.

Allow me to point it out right here and debunk all your uncertainties about time travel – it is very possible. So much so that you've already indulged in time travel. Not once. Not twice. So many times that only calendars can keep count. 

Not only that – you still do it, you little rebel, you. Every day. Every minute. You travel into the future. At the speed of 60 seconds per minute. Every minute. Every day. 

And you make this choice because you have the power to change every aspect of your future. Going to the past won't make life better today. Traveling to today will make tomorrow better for sure. 

Well, then. This is awkward. The entire premise of this writing – the entry on my to-do list – should've already been crossed off.
If only I could go back in time to do that.

Anywho. Next on my list: better time management.