Dear future me,
As another year wraps up and another begins, I realise that I have gotten a bit older. I don’t know you yet, but I imagine you will be a lot like current me, although I cannot render an accurate image of you if it were to save my life – or grant me the riches of the world (though I use that phrase with abject hesitation, because riches don’t interest me). You see, I can’t know what you will be like, but I certainly have hopes for you (me, that is). My expectation may be inherently faulty, and given the complexity of life, happenstance, coincidence and occurrence, whatever approximation of your character and likeness I can construct will be inaccurate or erroneous to the point of complete falsehood.
But that won’t discourage me. I’m writing you (yes specifically you) because, as subtly insidious as it might be, I have hopes for you. I wish things upon you, because eventually these will be upon me. If I don’t join the ranks of those who die young, I’ll become you.
Are you taller? And if baldness really is genetic, I hope the gene skipped a generation like it did with your cousins. If not, fret little, you can always shave yourself completely bald. (The shiny-head look is de rigueur). I wonder if you’ll ever gain weight, too, but that’s a small concern, because you’ve always had the metabolism of a Russian weightlifter, and you’ve always eaten like it was your last day of life and you’ve never grown heavier than your spindly thinness. Everyone’s quick to tell you to “eat!” and ask “do they ever feed you at home?” and you’re always quick to reply that you do, and they do. It runs in the family, that excellent metabolism, but of course you always knew that.
I hope you’re less confused. You will have had plenty of time to efface out all the inconsistencies, and to arrive at a coherent sense of self. Do you remember your confusion? If time has done its job (and it never fails to so it very likely has), I’ll remind you –
It was a feeling, far from momentary, that was completely distinct and immediately recognizable, like sadness and happiness and fear. The quintessential quality of happiness is that overpowering lightness it brings the mind, and that of fear is its shocking immediacy. That of sadness is that slumping of the mind, and confusion, like those aforementioned and it feels like screaming disorientation. I couldn’t hope more that that has ended for you.
I hope you continue trying to figure out everything in life, and fail unequivocally every time you try. I don’t say this out of masochism, but to feed that inquisitive nature that I’d hate for you lose. Though you might not find the answers you seek (often because there weren’t any), the road of your failed attempts is rewarding, and flings you towards areas interesting and thoroughly worth the visit. I hope you continue to see the beauty of life, despite the all too obvious disparity of the ugliness that blemishes its face.
Out of some sense of self-love that I don’t think is wholly outrageous, I hope life doesn’t disappoint you. Even if it doesn’t take the course you imagined or hoped would be taken (which is likely). I hope that you are continually and mercilessly proved wrong by life, because that will better your understanding of things. Those who spend their lives clinging to the knowledge they acquired in their youth also cling to gross naivety and are crudely simpleminded. Always realize that you might be at fault. I hope you grow to become deftly discerning and logical, insusceptible to fallacies of logic and mental misconduct, and that you continue to value your mind as your greatest asset. Speaking of your mind, I hope you continue to feed it relentlessly.
About being wrong, maybe upon reading this you’ll realize that this set of hopes is plagued by the same naivety and youthful ignorance that I warned you about earlier, and was just another blunder of an attempt at intellectualism and amateur philosophy that pretended it was something great but was ultimately nothing more than puerile intimation.
In which case, disregard everything I just said.
By Ahmed Samir
