So many hands have touched these accessories for solving problems in modern life, and equally well for problem-solving in earlier centuries, too. Over the years the build quality, materials, and precision tolerances have changed, but the hands that work these tools are about the same from one generation to the next. On the other hand, though, the worldview and life-chances of a person in the 1850s who wielded the knife, above, would differ to the person reaching adulthood soon after the conclusion to WWI and who bought the 1920s screw driver and began to gather tools for home repairs when graduating from college and moving to an apartment. Almost 100 years have gone by since that moment in the 1920s to the time of the (tablet) personal computer and Internet connectivity, represented by my mom’s iPad Mini that came into my hands more recently.
Museum educators have long used artifacts and other physical specimens to capture the attention of audiences in what has been called “object-based learning.” Since memories as well as new learning attach easily to physical location or to specific piece of material culture, and since a powerful emotional sense of authenticity is carried by items that come from an identifiable place and time, it is natural to look at artifacts as time-travelers. In this photo all three tools come from different starting points, but their histories are concurrent and their use-value persists today, no matter how old they are now.
Taking the viewpoint of today, each of these tools can be touched as a kind of telegraphic or teleporting channel across the decades during which different hands put the tool into use. But by turning to look into the future, these same pieces of history can be projected into the society yet to come; in short, they can be touched and the imagination can run freely to a time 20 years from now; or 50 or 150. Different hands will put these things to use, and different worldviews of the surrounding social landscape and the ecosystem (watershed for river systems; habitats for everything other than hominids). But the tools’ use-value should still serve the purpose of the future equally well to the time the tools were first made and sold (well perhaps not so the iPad since digital electronic tools have a very short service life for most purposes).
Turning the idea of time-traveler from artifacts in use for many decades to an individual person whose life spans many decades, a similar thinking exercise can be taken up. Looking around one’s neighborhood and surrounding lands, it is possible to bend the imagination in two chronological directions. On the one hand, it is possible to pretend that one is visiting the present moment from a time period long ago. To that historical person’s eyes this present moment is a glimpse of future society and a chance to see what has become of one’s descendants and the places belonging to one’s old historical routines. When the present moment is framed as futuristic (relative to that historical person of 100 or 400 years ago), then there will be much that is novel, baffling, disturbing, or perhaps offensive or insulting to one’s sense of what is considered normal and (culturally) ‘natural’. Ways of communicating, pace of interacting & expectations for speed of response, dietary options and variety (so many processed food and food-like products now), services and specialists where once there was no such thing, medical advances, perhaps innovations of interpretation or application by the congregations of religious practitioners now, too. Fashions for presenting oneself in public, ways to find information or answers to one’s problem will be different in many ways, too. But under all this procedural detail and technical powers much of human nature and interpersonal communication, including both foibles and noble intentions, will still be recognizable to the person who observes the present moment with eyes of a different era.
The same thought experiment can go in the opposite chronological direction, too. One can pretend to view the present day as if it were seen with the eyes of a person coming from an era some time in the future, say 20 years from now or 50 years from now. To such a person, as with the above case of chronological dislocation, there would be a mix of recognizable facets in daily interactions between people, along with myriad processes and techniques that perhaps seem quaint or obsolete (possibly barbaric or benighted) by comparison to that observer’s era in the not-too-distant future. In the eyes of a future person the talk-radio and social media of today will be framed by the knowledge about the historical flow of events, inventions, and other developments in society and the natural resources as they have come to be in that future era. With the benefit of the future knowledge and now visiting in person the present moment, there is a kind of hindsight at work: seeing the present headlines and personalities as they emerge, while also knowing where those matters will end up; how things will turn out.
No matter which lens you use to travel in time — viewing the present moment as a wondrous glimpse of future life, or viewing the present moment as a historical phase that will develop into new social life of decades yet to come — this kind of thought exercise can frame and separate some of the things that routinely are taken for granted about the present regime of assumptions, aspirations, norms, and the many ways to solve life’s little and big problems. So whether it is the collection of tools from several centuries that your hands work with, or whether it is yourself that is traveling across time, this appreciation of the present moment makes the days richer.
Today is somebody else’s imaginary future; but it is also another somebody’s nostalgic past. An archaeologist from 400 years in the future would feel great thrill and privilege to walk among the people today and observe the things needed to answer some of the questions that excavation teams often want to know about who is who, what symbols, processes, and social order seems to shape people’s lives here. And a time-traveler from 400 years ago might also feel great thrill and privilege for a glimpse of people’s lives today, especially concerning one’s own bloodline or namesake. But even if you do not venture into the time machine to revisit this present moment, just living one’s days in the ordinary way can still bring surprises and wonders, if only modern people were to slow down enough to look carefully and listen hard to the things around them.
