If You're Not the Protagonist, How Does a Time Machine Affect You?

So, apparently some Iranian scientist has purportedly built what he claims to be a "time machine". Obviously this caught my eye as a headline, so I read the article, which was very short, and I guess his "time machine" is actually just a personal computer-type-thing that works "by a set of complex algorithims to "predict five to eight years of the future life of any individual, with 98 percent accuracy". He goes on to say that "[his] invention easily fits into the size of a personal computer case and can predict details of the next 5-8 years of the life of its users. It will not take you into the future, it will bring the future to you."

Obviously, this is probably BS. If this were actually a working device, why brag about it by announcing it instead of just using it in secret to thwart your enemies? Anyway, the point of me sharing this is not necessarily to alert you guys to this headline, but rather to pose a question that was  provoked by this article. 

In most (arguably all) stories where a time machine is featured, we only get to see the point of view of the protagonist who is using the time machine. We never get the POV of any flat characters, or "extras", per se. While reading the article that I referenced above, I was struck with a question. How are you, as a non-protagonist, affected by the actions of the protagonist's use of a time machine? What happens to your reality when they're back in the past, or in the future, messing around with things that inevitably alter the state of affairs in the time period that they left/existed in to begin with? What do you experience, as a random person, as a side affect of the either total or imperceptible alterations that take place as a result of the protagonist? Does your world, without warning, suddenly change and adopt things that didn't exist a moment before, creating mass confusion? Or do you simply cease to exist in that reality, and you are replaced with a rewritten version of you that represents the butterfly effect of changes that have taken place due to the protagonist's efforts in the past? What does this look like? Is it like that episode of Doctor Who with Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor where a paradox is created and those terrifying time-monsters appear out of the sky and destroy a bunch of stuff? (see: Doctor Who episode "Father's Day") Are you just going about your daily business and then suddenly find you're speaking Spanish fluently instead of English, are surrounded by Nazis, are living with Dinosaurs, or are emerging from a Cold War bunker to a devastated and barren landscape? Or, as a general concept, is it as simple as history rewriting itself entirely, in an unfathomable amount of time, from the point of change inflicted by the protagonist? If that's the case, still, what happens to you? Did you never exist? Do you still exist in an alternate reality/universe? 

In the stories where a Time Machine is used, the protagonist usually returns to find that, if he has trifled with something, everything and everyone has changed. I guess because time is an invented, relative concept, I will never know the answer to this question. 

Japanese Cherry Blossoms

When I was a kid living in California, we had one of these trees around the side of our house leading to the back yard. It's a Japanese cherry blossom, I believe, and I have always associated the flowers with those formative memories I have of living with my mom in the suburbs.
I remember how every spring the hardy, but delicate, tree would bloom fantastically; its flowers always carpeted the ground beneath it. It provided a dappled shade in the side yard, and the sun danced between the leaves when a chilly, seasonal breeze would blow through. I have the most vivid memories of that tree; the most resplendent of these is a visual I have of looking up at the branches of the tree as a small child, perhaps of eight or nine years old. The branches were full with flowers, and I gazed at them from below. The sun gently back lit the blossoms, shining through their thin, gossamer petals and highlighting the bright yellow pollen on the tips of each slender stamen. The flowers shivered slightly in a crisp current, casting fluttering shadows across my face. I remember the pale, late winter sun warmed me slightly; some of the first warm sunlight I had felt since the winter months had come. The blossoms always arrived so quickly and thickly that the air hung with their intoxicating smell. The tree's perfume permeated the wind, so that for each quick moment that the air was still, the faint, wind-born aroma descended into a warm fragrance that covered my senses like a blanket. The scent, along with the ever-so-slight, wan warmth that the sun provided, caused me to revel in the moments when the wind would stop, creating such a silence. It was the kind of total, afternoon, sunlit stillness that makes you sleepy. Then, the breeze would begin to blow again; the heady, soporific calm suddenly becoming accompanied by the soft, tinkling sound of wind chimes. The gentle, melodious lullaby drifted on the breeze as flurries of petals floated down through the air, landed on my nose and cheeks, then flitted away again in the wind. The moment was fleeting, and then the sun would disappear behind our neighbor's house in its descent toward the horizon, plunging me into chilly, late afternoon shadow.
I recall this happening on more than one occasion. Oftentimes, I would stand, transfixed in this languid scene until the sun was gone, then I would hurry into my warm house to escape from the chill.

Why I Always Sucked in Creative Writing Class

I hate the feeling of wanting to create so badly, but not having any inspiration or creative juices left. It sucks. I feel like I have a huge creature made of ideas just bursting at the seams to escape its imprisonment in my mind, and I've lost the key to its cage. This happens way too frequently for my liking. To my chagrin and deepest irritation, I find more often than not that no matter how stoked and enthusiastic I am to sit down and create something, I can never actually pull it off unless I am in the exact right mood. Usually if I sit down and try to produce something, even if I have a definite idea and concept in my mind, I just can't do it. I'll sit there for hours, staring at the one or two lines I've written down, desperately trying to come up with something to follow. No, in those rare occasions where I succeed at creating something, even if it's of questionable quality, it's because I was struck with the sudden desire to write, play, or record something I didn't want to forget. The inspiration hits me like a tidal wave, and I am washed over with words that I feel I have to scramble to capture before they drift away. 

This is why I wasn't always good in the various creative writing classes I've taken. My teacher would give us a warm-up prompt with a time limit on it, and I was never sure what degree of success I would have with it. Depending on the prompt, I would either be wildly victorious and be confident enough to read my creation out loud to the class, or I would sit there, staring at the words, questions or photograph or whatever it was that was on the board, determinedly trying to think of something innovative. I would ultimately end up scribbling down something mediocre near the end of the allotted time, often times crossing it out later because of how atrociously impossible it was to expound upon. I was generally relieved to receive assignments, because that meant that instead of having to pounce on a subject and furiously and frenziedly produce a piece, I could have time to write, and hope that the aforementioned wave of inspiration would hit me at some point before my work was due. Sometimes it would, sometimes it wouldn't, but usually if it was a prose-based assignment, I could crank out something moderately above-average if I really set my mind to it. 

It's interesting, because when I was younger, I never used to write prose. I've always had an affinity for writing; when I was really little, I used to keep a diary. It was purple, argyle-patterned leather, with Pocahontas and her raccoon friend on the front. I started writing in it pretty much as soon as I could write, and kept it solidly until I was about 12 years old. At that point, the entries became few and far between, sometimes stretching over a whole year before I would write something new. Once I was a teen, I started unintentionally accumulating stacks of notebooks, most of them relating to school in some way, in which I would write short, rhyming poems. They mostly consisted of simple a, b, a, b schemes, or sometimes a, b, c, b or whatever. If I was feeling particularly adventurous I would meddle with other rhyme schemes, but all of my poems always rhymed. I didn't dabble in prose too much at that point. I was like, 14, and I was primarily writing about boys and other such topics, and what better way to do it than nursery rhyme style? It wasn't until I got older and really interested in reading that I decided I wanted to try writing short stories and other prose pieces. Before that though, in my rhyme phase, it was easy for me to just sit down and write about anything. As I've gotten older, I've grown out of the poems and have discovered that it's much easier for me to write prose most of the time. When the wave hits, however, I still like to compose poems if the mood allows me to. It's an interesting switch, but I guess it probably says something about my life or my personal growth and development or something. I've grown out of the fantastical nursery rhymes and grown into more realistic compositions. I'll always be a bit of a dreamer though. 

Fiji!!

Finding My Place in the World

Before my trip here I knew I wanted to travel, but somehow it always seemed kind of far-fetched and not easily attainable, because I had never met anyone who wanted to travel like I do. I want to leave my country for months at a time and just live somewhere new, and I wasn't sure if there were any other people out there doing that. Since I have been here in New Zealand, and recently in Fiji for two weeks, I have met so many people from so many places who are travelling. They're just out in the world and going places for months, years sometimes. They decided they wanted to see the world so they up and left home and are just going. Some of them know for how long and what their game plan is, some of them don't and are just planning their next step as they go along. I think that's so awesome. Almost all of the exchange students I have met here are doing some amount of travelling after the semester is over, and I have met infinitely more people in Fiji over the last two weeks that are doing the same thing. They're young, they have time, and they're enjoying life and doing what they want to do because they can. I met two girls from Wales who quit their jobs so they could go travelling for 4 months. They've been all over the place and are having the time of their lives. I met another two girls who are from England and are travelling all over Australia and have been moving around the country for 8 months now. Today, I met another American who was at the start of her journey and was on her way to New Zealand to begin her travels, which she was planning on lasting for a year. I met a guy from Germany who just moved to Brisbane to work and travel. I have made friends with some Austrians who are ending their semester here in November, but aren't going to be home until February because they're going to tour the rest of New Zealand and then the United States afterwards. I want that! Meeting all of these awesome people from awesome places who are travelling and going places because they can has made me realize a few things: 1) whenever I do decide to settle down somewhere, I don't want to live in the US. 2) There are so many interesting people in the world and I don't want to miss out on meeting them because I have to stay cooped up in the same place forever, and 3) the world is so beautiful and I want to see it all. There's a quote that I really believe in, especially now, "The world is a book and those that do not travel are only reading one page." I have to travel. I want to travel so badly and see the world while I'm young and can do it. Meeting all of these other people who are doing just that has really inspired me and opened my eyes. It's made me realize that America is not the place for me. At least not permanently. I have always thought that travelling is important, and I believe in that even more now. Americans don't advocate travelling enough. I know plenty of people who have never left the country or even their state, and never intend to because they don't know what they're missing. I have met people here who live in Europe and travel all the time; partly because of the ease it of, what with Europe being comprised of so many small countries. If I had never decided to come on this exchange semester, I would have never met any of these people, and although I knew before that I wanted to travel, the idea has become that much more reinforced in my mind now. Some of the most interesting and independent, creative, generous, and intelligent people are those that I have met here and while abroad. I know now what creed of people I belong with and I feel really fulfilled and like my life finally has a definite direction and purpose. Even though I don't have everything figured out life-wise, I know who I want to be, where I want to go and what kind of people I want to spend my time with, and I think that's a pretty good start. 

Auckland Antics

So cool! Salvadore Dali in collaboration with Walt Disney. Absolutely gorgeous.