Good Evening Splodgearoos!
This evening I have been thinking about all the things I would say to myself in future. I reasoned many different things I would say- but then I suddenly stopped myself. Wouldn't I be more interested in asking questions? And how far in the future are we even talking? Five years? Ten? Twenty?
These are all really complicated questions- first off, would the answers that future me gives always be the same? Or would they vary according to where I am in my present? For example, present me, here on the evening of the 28th of November, 2014 is in a very different place to myself on the same date in 2013. I had no idea that this present would be happening. It would've been great to know I had it to look forward to- as at the time I was thoroughly miserable and living in a house in Manchester that I called The Icebox. But had I not decided that the house was too horrible to continue living in and moved back to Lancaster, would I be where I am now? Its all a sort of long long LONG chain of cause and effect - insert wibbley wobbly timey wimey ball of stuff joke here - But relatively speaking, y'know in the course of the history of the whole of humanity, its a relatively small thing to happen. But to me, it meant a great deal changed.
If I go out tomorrow and discover something or meet someone, that could set off a chain of events that change my entire future- and present me could be asking all the wrong questions to future me. But if I stay in all weekend and do nothing at all, I'm unlikely to form some such tangential narrative event shaping my potential future. I read a theory once (admittedly a long time ago, and in a philosophy book aimed at teenagers in some vain attempt to prevent them howling into the void with their own existential crises that we all had and trying to make sense of the world around them) that every time a decision is made, a parallel universe splits off in which a different decision was made- excellently demonstrated by the Dr Who episode "Turn Left" ...well sort of- because in that episode there seemed to be only extra universe created by a changed decision. If I recall correctly that is. But this book was suggesting that something as small as choosing to wear a different pair of socks that day would potentially be a decision that creates a new universe. Imagine that! A whole new universe just because I wore my elephant socks instead of my hedgehog ones! And not just that, what about my giraffe socks? There could be a different universe for every pair of socks I could've put on that day. And don't even get me started about where all the missing socks go.
...So perhaps I need to (theoretically or at least metaphorically consider) questions for every single possible version of myself... well this is going to take some time. My brain is a little scrambled from the enormity of what I am trying to comprehend and articulate. I'm sorry if this post has seemed a little drifty or unclear- but what I'm basically trying to say is that to address my future self would require me to decide on a single version of my future self... and really that's not something that I really want to do. Knowing the future would.. well, spoil the surprise I suppose. I mean, obviously it'd be pretty great to know about any disasters that were going to happen so we could all be out of the way, but the mundane every day, utterly human things that we experience all the time? I'd rather experience them as they were actually happening. And if I dwell too much on the future, I forget to be properly present in the present...
...I'll just leave you with your own thoughts :P let me know what you think in the comments!
Today, this is me:
See you tomorrow!
-Rosa
x
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