A friend asked me on the phone today "if you had the ability to either rewind, pause or fast forward time, which would you pick?" This was possibly the hardest question I've ever been asked, and I couldn't give my friend an answer. I consider myself a visual learner, and want to work through the possibilities. My friend added that the only other ability you would have would be to return life to normal speed, sort of like a 'play' button, but you would have no other time-travel abilities whatsoever.

Rewind was the first one I considered as my favourite, probably because I like history, and would love to go back into the past to meet various historical figures. However, with great power comes great responsibility and there is that old sci-fi tv programme favourite of tiny, insignificant things from the past greatly effecting the future. Now, knowing my luck it's very unlikely that this change would be for the better and therefore I think that if travelling into the past I would be too cautious and worried to actually make the most of the time. However, too avoid such drastic changes from happening I could choose to travel merely 10 or 12 years into the past. This would allow me to re-live my life and perhaps learn to appreciate life more; I would get to experience again the best days of my life, but unfortunately, also the worst. 

The ability to pause life immediately sounds like the most boring of the three, and I think that it needs to be carefully considered instead of being brushed aside. When I thought about it, and truly considered all the opportunities I could come up with, I really really liked the idea. I am assuming that when pausing time, I would still have the ability to move myself, and other objects, otherwise, the pause function on this remote would be pretty much useless. I tried to think of times when the ability to pause life would be useful, and having recently completed my gcses, the first occasion which sprung to mind was during an exam. It may count as cheating, but I'm fairly sure that exam board rules do not state that you cannot receive your exam paper, read the question, pause time, find the answer, and then answer the question. Another time I would like to be able to pause time is when under pressure, in any situation. Being able to pause what is happening, step back and breathe for a bit would really come in handy at stressful times, and probably save me from a lot of arguements and jsut generally deter bad moods, which would be lovely. Additionally, on those days when you really aren't in the mood for something, for example say you have to act seriously but you're just not in the mood, you can pause time and take a while to adjust to a situation, think how much easier life would be.One of my favourite pros of pausing life would be the ability to have a much longer day. You could wake up at 7am, pause time, go back to sleep for a further 4 hours, then wake up and return to 7am. You'd feel refreshed and ready for a nice long day, regardless of how much sleep you actually got the following night. Or, say there is cleaning that needs to be done, but your favourite tv programme is about to start.  You could pause time, clean up, return to the sofa and relax in front of the television. Sounds pretty good, doesn't it? 

Fast forward. Now, my desire for this skill hugely depends on whether or not I age as I fast forward time. For example, if I were to travel 60 years into the future, would I feel (and/or appear) frail, or would my body stay the same at age of time travel? If I were to age with the transition, I wouldn't even consider this ability. I would only get to experience a certain amount of time into the future, and if I just wait patiently I can do that naturally. However, if I was able to travel hundreds of years into the future, maintaining my current 16 year old body, I would consider it. Although, really, when I think about it, the future doesn't sound too bright for the human race, and I'm not sure that I really want to see all of that first hand. I'm not the strongest of swimmers, so if all this global warming malarky happens, I'm a bit screwed. Fast forwarding, I don't like the sound of.

I think I've come to a conclusion. Pausing time seems the most rewarding. It wouldn't greatly effect my life in a negative way, so I would still be able to live as a human, and not some sort of time travelling robot. I'd just be a super-human, and that would be nice.