Hello My Friend

Dear Future Brian: It’s the eve of another new year. This year, the completing year, has been a long and difficult one. In a decade, on the eve of your future new year, what you’ve received in this is the electronic equivalent of a message in a bottle set adrift from a distant shore. Whether you choose to read it or toss it back into the sea is your decision. But I’d like to think your curiosity will get the better of you. I’m taking somewhat of a risk in assuming this reaches you. I’ve requested this letter to you (me) be emailed 10 years from today to your very same email address. To be safe, I also included your other email addresses (you really need to narrow it down to one, by the way). This letter is emailed to all your addresses as I’m a tad bit cautious here on the last day of 2009. Or I don’t have faith in the permanence of the technology I’ve employed to reach you. Or perhaps it is both. I am curious about your life in 2019 and whom you have become. Have you New Zealand yet? Have you watched the sun rise off the coast of southern Argentina? Have you published that novel? And the next? Or have you let the dust accumulate for another decade on those dreams you once had? Have you lost that flabby belly? Reclaimed your soul? Are you happier? I’m as full of questions as a five-year old, but you’re probably wondering if I have any answers for you. I do. Sort of. I have the same answers you knew a decade ago. In case you’ve forgotten, I’ll do the best I can to summarize them. So pay close attention. They are guidelines to simplify things. While simple, they are not easy. Had they been easy, I would not be writing myself in the future. As you undoubtedly know by now, you rarely have time for everything you want in this life, so you have to make choices. And hopefully your choices have come from a deep sense of who you are. One of the great tragedies of our time is that in our desperate incapacity to cope with the complexities of our world, we oversimplify every issue and reduce it to a neat ideological formula. Doubtless we have to do something in order to grasp things quickly and effectively. But unfortunately this “quick and effective grasp” too often turns out to be no grasp at all, or only a grasp on a shadow. The ideological formulas for which we are willing to tolerate and even provoke the destruction of entire nations may one day reveal themselves to have been the most complete deceptions. Here in 2009 I find that the American conscience is troubled by a sense of tragic ambiguity in our professed motives for massive intervention. Yet in the name of such tenuous and questionable motives we continue to be at war, have still more massive debt and a lingering sense of hopelessness because we think we have no alternative, and because we are reduced to a despairing trust in the assurance of “experts” in whom we have no real confidence. I’m hopeful you live in less ambiguous times. As Den Ming-Dao once said, “You may be capable of great things but life consists of small things.” So, despite your personal accomplishments, I’d be surprised if you didn’t still suffer from the same eternal woes that have plagued you from day one: cruelty toward your inferiors, resentment of your superiors, loneliness, alienation, fear of mediocrity, a general lack of happiness. It doesn’t make a pretty picture. But it makes a human one. No matter how thoroughly you’re connected to your technology, you can’t suppress the inner being that is human. That’s not entirely a bad thing. Savor the innocence and fun of the un-programmed life, and don’t let the machines control the meanderings of your mind. Even if it means failing now and then. Even if it means feeling isolated from the herd. Better to be merry some of the time, and miserable some of the time, than to be merely well-adjusted all of the time. Dare to experience rich and ancient emotions like longing and the gnashing of teeth. Lose control of your faculties for a few hours. Forget about obtaining that next big house and whether it’s time for a German car. Life is more than the procurement of advantages for yourself and your kin. The best advice you’ve known all along. But let’s run through it again in case you need to hear it. Don’t believe all you hear, spend all you have or sleep all you want. When you say, “I love you,” mean it. When you say, “I’m sorry,” look the person in the eye. In disagreements, fight fairly. No name calling. Don’t judge people by their relatives. Talk slow but think quickly. When someone asks you a question you don’t want to answer, smile and ask, “Why do you want to know?” Silence is sometimes the best answer. Believe in love at first sight. Love deeply and passionately. Never laugh at anyone’s dreams, not even your own. You might get hurt but it’s the only way to live life completely. Remember that great love and great achievements involve great risk. When you lose, don’t lose the lesson. Don’t let a little dispute injure a great friendship. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it. Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values. Mind your own business but share your knowledge. If you haven’t yet, make it your mission to finish writing those books. It’s a way to achieve immortality. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it. Reclaim the time you used to cherish when you spent time alone. Read more books. Read between the lines. Approach love, and cooking, with reckless abandon. Call your mom. Say “bless you” when you hear someone sneeze. Trust in God but lock your car. Close your eyes when you get a kiss. Pray. There’s immeasurable power in praying. But also know that not getting what you want is sometimes a stroke of luck. Your character is your destiny. You’ve learned that by now at least. Don’t let your world be reduced to bits of information that need processing. Ignore your corporate mission statement; you require texture, color, sights, tastes, smells, and whatever new senses you’ve developed by now. Climb a tree again. Learn to dance a tango. Eat the whole enchilada. Mingle with live bodies and meet mavericks like yourself. Above all, don’t forget your heartfelt desire and taste for adventure. Make friends with it. Find a photograph of yourself from 2009 and look me (yourself) in the eye; let yourself be moved by the same small glint – that subtle hint of a mischievous twinkle – that you see peering back at you. You were wiser then than you know. All the best, your friend, Brian