The Letter I Could Never Write to Myself
When I was in middle school and in high school, my teacher let us write a letter to ourselves ten years into the future. Something about that feels wrong to me then, and it still does now. Although I am a person enjoying doing melodramatic gestures like writing love letters and postcards, writing to my future self only makes me produce emotions and wishes that feel fake.
First but not most, I never believed that letter would come back to me. After ten years, my address would have certainly changed, and I could hardly expect my teacher to track everyone down.
As I said, that is not crucial. What I was worried about was the possibility that my letter would be read by my teacher or some random stranger (if the letter is to be lost). By that worry it is impossible for me to write as if I were truly writing only to myself. I became pretentious, self-conscious, evasive about my darker thoughts, and preoccupied with how the letter would appear to someone else. For me, this worry was not trivial. I was conflicted, and at the same time wanted to dress up my deep and dark side of mind so that I could expose them safely. Anyway, no matter what I write in such an article, it is meaningless to the future me. The thought of sending my future self a package of warm, fluffy optimism made me feel almost nauseated.
Frankly, I do not want to predict who I will be ten years from now. Any prescribe for myself in the far future repels me. The assignment felt like I only have two options ten years later: to live up to what I expected, or to fail them. I want to always have the right of judging myself at the present. I refuse to become merely the version of myself that my younger self once expected. Such a person is like an 10x amplified my younger self, with 10x bloated volume but the same mass. What a hollow image that is! 50 years ago, people could think about several ways the science could advance, but could not write down the exact theories, or know all the new directions we have now. In the same way, using my cognitive resources today, I cannot meaningfully specify what growth I will take in the future.
For me, my expected self in the future has views, experiences, and goals beyond my thoughts, and lives a life I can never predict. It is not a romantic wish, but a process where I try something untried day by day, touch something untouched one by one, fulfill my unlimited curiosity step by step. This also includes knowing the unknown self bit by bit. I’m not saying I don’t have dreams, yet I leave my dreams blurred at the edges, open to revisions.
My greatest despair would be to face a predetermined life, a future self whom I can already fully understand. My greatest joy—instead of anguish—is enjoying the freedom and the responsibility, day by day, for the choices through which I define my own way of being.