The Best of Times, the Worst of Times

If you could have chosen the place and time for your life, would you pick the here and now? Or would you choose someplace else, or some other time? Why?

This is not meant to be a spam thread. I'm really curious about how people look at different places and times...

Me, I'd have to say I would like to have been in France around 1250 AD. More specifically, the city of Troies (modern Troyes) in the County of Champagne. It seems to have been a dynamic place, a place where the old "feudal" Europe was smashing face-first into a new "capitalist" Europe. A city that is now probably no more than a dot on the map was at that time one of the major economic centers of Western Europe, where everything from spices to Flemish cloth was traded. Europe was relatively peaceful (note, relatively, not absolutely!)... Naturally, modern conveniences were lacking, and life was grittier, perhaps harsher, but I have an attraction for the 13th Century that I can't completely pin down...



That's just one choice... there's at least another half dozen times/places I'd like to have been in. I really gotta get me a time machine! Anyone got one for sale? Cheap?

 

Hmmm I really don't know, most likely sometime while Greece was in power, maybe just after the Trojan war. Or maybe during the Dark ages just prior to the middle ages cause that's when alot of D&D type adventures took place

But I must say that of all the possible time periods the futurelike 75 to 100 years from now once we start exploring outer space or are travel to mars and back is common place would be the most exciting for me :thumbup:

 

I would like to live in a world of gorgous womes where I would be the only man and they'd worhip me and we wouldn't get old and umm yeah.

Seriously now I have to say it depends - if I were rich and powerful, well most places and times are great for such people. Anyway I'd like to live in ancient Rome or Japan/China. But then could I live without nowadays waste disposal systems? So maybe some time in the future rather. Perhaps when I could become a space privateer.

 

I'd like to live somewhere where my life was healthy, peaceful and satisfying. Maybe some agrarian existence at a place where nature is bountiful and a time of uninterrupted peace.

Did such a time and place ever exist? Then again, maybe every time and place would be like that if I'd let it.

 

i would like to leave in the future to see whats it like
will it be like in the movies?
will be the world in chaos (ala fallout)
or maybe the people of earth has finally have world peace

 

I always wanted to go back about 100 years ago, living in the southern U.S. where people farmed for a living. Times were simpler, people were simpler and harder working, families were closer, and the rat race hadn't been invented yet.

I just always wanted to be a farmer.

 

900 AD, cause that'd make me a Viking. Sweet life, drink mead, eat poisonous mushrooms and heaps of meat, plunder villages, rape women, sail around in silly ships. And i'd be so bonged up on mushrooms and mead all the time, that i'd not even notice there was a world going on besides my own, and i'd not even feel the sword that would slay me on one of my onslaughts.

But that's just one option,

cause basically, i agree with retard. I'd like to live in a time where there was only one path for you to choose. There weren't 1000 opportunities, if you lived on a farm, you became a farmer just like your dad, and your dad's dad, and so on. It's the life you'd know, and it's the life you'd have, finished. No education, no jobs, no travelling, no vocational guidance counsellors, just doing the one thing you can and must do. Simple :roll:

 

I bet that not too long from now there'll be special recreational centres where businessmen will pay huge amounts of cash to live an ordinary life away from their cell phones, laptops and ass-lickers.

what's their job?

 

To give vocational guidance of course

 

I'd have to say enlightenment-period France (1650-1750, I think?). To be among the Freethinkers and Skeptics like Voltaire, Montesquieu, Rousseau, ...to be able to openly discuss heretofore "heretic" issues amongst similarly open-minded and intelligent folk in Salons, while the world around you is rapidly changing, expanding, learning - the scientific and philosophic academies, the encouragement of the boundless pursuit of knowledge...Ah, that would be heaven.

 

That whould have been an excellent time to live in also. I was going to put this down but i couldn't get the time period down I think Italy during this time would have been a blast to live in also artyhat:

Oh and i forgot to mention I would have liked to have been a in my mid twentys in the early 60's (to old for the draft but young enough to enjoy a good party) thrus the 70's. I caught the tail end of it and man was it a blast. To be at Woodstock would have been so cool :hippy:

 

Thanks Rat, I knew I could count on you.

 

early america like post revolutionary pre civil war

 

Thanks for the answers thus far.

Dark Ages, prior to Middle Ages... umm... okay. :-? "Dark Ages" was a title given by "Enlightened" men in the later Renaissance to describe the entire Medieval period, because they were convinced they lived in a much better world, thus "Enlightened" vs. "Dark". I assume what you meant was early Middle Ages, post-Roman empire, say around 500 A.D. ? A rough and tumble period - you got that right.

Future: no comment... I'm a historian

Ancient Rome could've been cool. For the record, they DID have waste disposal - actually a pretty advanced system, far better than in the ensuing thousand years. Unfortunately, their solution (in the city of Rome, anyway) was to simply dump everything into the Tiber River...

I'm not too up on Japan/China, but what I do know seems interesting enough...

Agrarian seems pretty popular. It's not for me, I admit, but I think I could see the attraction. By a "time of uninterrupted peace" I would assume you mean at least for the length of your life? So, we'd be looking for a pastoral existence in a place that has known peace for, say, 70 years anyway. I think I could pull up a few such places

Another agrarian. I'm not so sure that the old south, post-Civil War, would have been a great place to be. It took the south an awful long time to recover from the Civil War... in fact, I'm not sure it ever has truly recovered...

Ah, a Viking spirit. An, um, interesting choice. I'm not sure about the mushrooms part, though. :-?

Ah, another fascinating time period... And here I thought you were a "Renaissance" girl.

In the Chinese sense, that was an "interesting time". I missed it, myself. Don't think I'd have wanted to be there, though - too much turmoil for my taste.

Late 1700s-mid 1800s. Another dynamic period in American history. A time when boundless opportunities existed and America was a new nation full of bright promise and hope... Not my cup of tea. I'm more partial to colonial America.

Anyone else? What about a time you definitely are GLAD you missed?

 

I'd have loved to live in ancient Rome and or Gaul. Or better yet, some place with magic. Probably a Lord of the Rings world...° that would be cool. Has anyone here read Sabriel? Maybe a world like that...

I don't think I'd like to live during the 1500's-early 1800's. I'd die so quickly... yeah, that would definately be a bummer.­ª I don't think I'd like to live in a Blade Runner/Depressing future type world.


























°I am a freak! I know this! I accept it! I revel in it! ... You must admit, it would be cool though. ^_^



­


ª A bummer? Oh my...

 

Either of the WWs. Any of the big recessions/depressions (I wish I'd missed the 90s and 70s ones). I wouldn't have wanted to live in a city during almost any times. It's all very well if you were one of the social elite, but that was only a minority of the population. Most of us would have been working our fingers to the bone for someone else. For the same reason, I wouldn't have wanted to be a feudal peasant, or a Grecian or Roman slave. I certainly wouldn't have wanted to live through any of the empires that toppled (there have been a lot) or invasions. The plagues would have been nasty, too.

um ... yeah ... can we just chalk me down for counting myself lucky to be living now¹















¹On the brink of extinction.

 

Either the future, when we are all in space ships and driving flying cars, or the past, like midevil times, around the time when LoTR is based for. When there were achemists, knights, castles, and kingdoms. That is the time I wish I was at.

 

Well being mostly black in heritage I would have to say the late 1600's to the mid 1900's Not a particularly good time to be black and I like being black 8)
(This was also not a really good time to be a witch or to be gay so that makes it a triple ditto for me.)

 

I would not like to have been around in the dark ages, when there were almost zippo discoveries, and everyone was dying of Black Plague.

 

A magic world... wouldn't that be interesting.

hehe... You are hard to please, eh? Remind me not to let you ride in my time travel machine.

Medieval! Dang it, it's Medieval! Midevil... sheesh.
(Medieval comes from the latin, Medium Aevum, for Middle Age).

Otherwise, a good choice

Hel Khat - yes, I can see your problem as a gay, black witch. That does limit your options! :wink:

You just said Middle Ages, now you say not? I'm confused...

There actually were a great number of discoveries and advances being made. The Renaissance just tended to downplay them...

The Black Death (Plague) didn't hit Europe until the Renaissance (1347 to be precise), so you'd be safe from that in Medieval Europe.