“The straightest line may be the shortest distance between two points, but it is by no means the most interesting!” That’s a quote from the third Doctor from the long running British sci-if television series Doctor Who.

I will admit, if I haven’t already, that I am a diehard Whovian. I was introduced to Doctor Who in college in the 1980s. I saw this strange man wearing a scarf that had to be over 20 feet long, fighting robot tanks with a screwdriver and a blue box.

It was watching Doctor Who that made me realize that I felt like an anachronism, that I was born on the wrong time. Some people might relate this to reincarnation, but I don’t really know if I believe in that. I just know that I feel out-of-place in this modern-day and age.

Oh don’t get me wrong, I love the modern conveniences we have today. I prefer indoor plumbing, modern medicine and the Internet. It’s weird that when I look at movies from the 30s or 40s, or even period pieces from the late 1800s, I get nostalgic and I am awash with a sick feeling, almost like being homesick.

It’s ironic that, when you look at television and movies from the past, they all strived to look ahead to the future.Did you know that the original Lost in Space TV series I the 60s was set in the 1980s? Or that the Back to the Future movies were looking ahead to the 2000s? The world didn’t quite turn out that way for us, but we’re getting close. They did just get an actual hoverboard working recently.

I think that why I like Doctor Who so much, all the modern convinces inside a flying time machine that can take you to anywhere in time and space. At the same time, I’m also a big fan of steampunk. The outlandish Victorian style combined with modern technology is absolutely amazing to me. My wife and I would love to decorate our home in steampunk.

I think that’s what we need today. We need a little old fashion style and sensibility combined with modern technology and thinking. That’s what steampunk represents, bringing two worlds together to make a functional lifestyle.

I don’t want to get political here, believe me I don’t. Our world today is so combative when it comes to either the left or the right that you can’t have conversations on even the simplest of topics. I refuse to talk politics with my daughter in the same room because she is so passionate that she gets argumentative.

I remember the old saying, “Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.” I think we are headed down that path in the world today. We are so busy looking to the future that we forget the teachings of the past.

So, let’s all climb into the TARDIS and take a stroll through time so that, as the Doctor would say, “You know, the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don’t alter their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their views.” (By the way, that was said by my Doctor, Tom Baker, the 4th Doctor!)