As of June 29, I have reached 76 birthdays, but I am thinking back to a time when I was a kid and saw my life getting redirected. I was attracted to paperback books before the start of my teenage years. The scent of the cheap paper and the feel of those thin cardboard covers owned me completely so very long ago. In particular, science fiction paperback books became a literal addiction for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The End of Eternity<\/i> by Issac Asimov stands without challengers as the most significant science fiction I ever read. This short Asimov novel was the way I first learned about time travel. I was expecting merely to enjoy an exciting reading experience, but before I finished the book, my life became totally redirected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Asimov compelled me to think about the consequences of putting faith in the existence of eternity. Very serious stuff for a twelve-year-old growing up in a slow little town.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Having been born into the Roman Catholic faith, I was socialized during my formative years to respect authority and to accept what authority figures told me was true. That worked well enough in persuading me to observe meatless Fridays. But the validity of religious authority figures (nuns and priests) in my young life steadily began to dissolve and melt away the deeper I got into the Asimov novel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I had grown accustomed to adult authority figures worrying about pre-teens picking up troubling perceptions from books that they read. In those ancient days before the internet and hand-held digital devices, kids like me actually would check out books to read from the public library. Of course, parents would forbid their young children from reading sexually explicit books. That was too obvious. Meanwhile in that quaint Eisenhower Era, few authority figures realized that science fiction books just might dangerously shape the lives of young readers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The simplest explanation as to how that one Asimov novel could redirect my life has everything to do with the concept of eternity as explored by Asimov in his novel. I came to understand eternity as a tangible concept versus a religious dogma. I found myself doing a mathematical comparison of eternity as measured in years as compared to the number of years in a normal lifespan for most people. It was very easy for me to grasp the reality that eternity has a vital importance for humanity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To be specific, Asimov\u2019s novel made me start to realize the absurdity of Heaven and Hell. I could not understand how mortal life logically or legitimately might earn any person either eternal reward or eternal punishment. I began to accept the possibility that the notion of eternal reward and eternal punishment had been invented by authority figures on Earth. This seemed to me to be a wholly manmade invention so some humans could manipulate and control other humans. Credit goes to Asimov for inoculating me against the impact of Roman Catholic guilt-tripping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My parents thought I had become a heretic despite all those years of Roman Catholic education. And maybe they were correct. I immediately went on to welcome additional dangerous science fiction in my life such as Asimov\u2019s Foundation<\/i> and Arthur C. Clarke\u2019s The Sentinel<\/i>. I was captivated by the emerging science fiction television subgenre in The Twilight Zone<\/i> from Rod Serling. And I consider myself lucky to have known Star Trek<\/i> creator, Gene Roddenberry, whom I met while I worked in the radio business in Hollywood. His influence upon me resulted in my completing a doctoral dissertation focused on the importance of analyzing Star Trek<\/i> for its embedded messaging within storytelling<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, here I find myself living in a future where time travel has not yet been invented. On this occasion of completing yet another journey around the sun, I sip sparkling wine. Let me raise my glass and send out a toast to you, Isaac Asimov, wherever you are. You will never know the impact that you had upon me. I followed your lead. I just released a time travel adventure novel called Clavius Deep<\/a>, which is the first installment of a planned trilogy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As of June 29, I have reached 76 birthdays, but I am thinking back to a time when<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":598148490,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[245,16],"tags":[197],"class_list":["post-598148489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-personal","tag-star-trek"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodygoulart.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598148489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodygoulart.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodygoulart.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodygoulart.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodygoulart.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=598148489"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/woodygoulart.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598148489\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":598148495,"href":"https:\/\/woodygoulart.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598148489\/revisions\/598148495"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodygoulart.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/598148490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodygoulart.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598148489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodygoulart.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598148489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodygoulart.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598148489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}