One of the things I don't always like to admit I love about being at my parents' house is TV. I don't have cable in Richmond, and that's a very good thing. I never wish I had it. But when I'm here in Henderson, it's quite exciting to exercise the power of DVR. I often flip it on when I'm eating just to see what's up.
This morning, I came across Quantum Leap, the baller-est show of the 90s. It used to come on at noon every day, already reruns when we were kids, and my brother and I watched it with lunch. Here's the intro, which tells the premise more concisely than I would.
The episode I watched the end of today was the epic-est one because he leaps into HIS OWN SELF at age 16! Win. He knows his brother is about to go to Vietnam and die there, so he tries to keep him from going. It doesn't go well. He's all, "On April 8th, you have to hide in the deepest hole you can find. Promise me." Then he plays "Imagine" for his little sister and tells her the Beatles are going to break up and Paul's going to have a new band called Wings. She gets upset because she's never heard the song before, and probably because of Wings too. Then his awesome hologram advocate Al says, "You're not making it better. You're not changing anything in the future. You're only making them miserable now."
I'm guessing this lesson pops up in most episodes of the show. Knowing the future wouldn't make it better. It would just make us anxious. If I knew the great things in store for me, I'd just be impatient to get to them and not content with the present. If I knew the bad things, I'd be more of a worrier and a downer. This all assumes you can't change things, which we don't really know. But it certainly makes me feel better about the not-knowing.
Also, Scott Bakula= Hey there, sailor.
