A Letter To Me
Heard a piece the other day on NPR, possibly by the breathlessly sentimental Robin Young, about how wonderful it would be to have written a letter to yourself, to be opened and read by your older self. For instance, a sixteen year old writing to his fifty year old self. Which set me to thinking (praises be!), wouldn’t the reverse be more provocative? Suspend your notions of the Laws of Physics for a moment and consider what you might pen to your much younger self:
Dear Former Self,
Hi there. It’s me. You!
Scratch that. Let’s start over.
How about this: I am you. I’m writing to you (me) from the future. Better?
I know this must seem absurd. I’d feel the same way. But of course I would! You and I — we — are the same.
Take a deep breath. Right. So the first thing I need to say to you, me, is that nothing I’m about to tell you (me) can be used to change the course of your (my) life. For instance, when I tell you that I (you) will stop smoking one day, while true, it is not be possible for you (me) to avoid taking up the habit to begin with. I could not have stopped doing something you (I) never started. Crazy, right? You see, while I am able and willing to tell you things about the future, down to the most intimate thoughts you’ll experience, some of which I have (you will) share with no one, the immutable law of cause and effect remains to this day ruthlessly deterministic and applicable at all scales of matter. From the tiniest atomic particle up to and including the vector of an organized human life. Everything is subject to the Laws of Physics. Everything. Well, everything that we know of anyway. And by “we” here I don’t mean just you and I (one in the same — told you this would seem absurd), but rather the collective we of the world. And herein is an important lesson of epistemology: Whenever you reason, always leave yourself an out. Qualifying your claims with “…that we know of anyway” is a handy way to do this.
What I’m trying to say, kid, is that your (my) life will unfold precisely as it has been determined to. (Who or what is the determiner? This remains the topic of an open letter to Reality.). Oh, it will certainly seem to you along the way that you’re choosing your own path, you’ll wave your arms and shout, “See, I have free will!” No sane person will deny you’re correct. But I (you) am here to tell you that I already know, down to the most indivisible detail of your life, what you’re going to think and do. How? Because I (you) have already done it!
Do you see where we are going with this? Now, what I’m going to tell you in terms of what’s coming your (our) way will at times be exciting, and at others, terrifying. I know this must seem absurd to you, getting a letter from your future self. But surely you can take comfort in one thing: I’m here. You’re still here.
To be continued…