A Call from the Future

Welcome to the future.

It's just you here now.

No one has been by to check in on things for a long time now.

"It's what happens", I hear often. But some of the people — they became something different and that was something I never thought would happen. Perhaps I didn't know as much as I thought back then.

Some of these folks; they don't even know themselves anymore either. They became like strangers in their own bodies for reasons that I would probably not know. Nonetheless, they went about the motions as I did too.

But for some, they began causing destruction and talking poorly about others for no good reason at all. Does anyone like a gossip? Of course not, but miserable people need company and they often tend to enjoy each other's words too.

I guess that makes the right amount of sense. People with similar natures gravitate towards each other. Maybe the people that end up alone are more noble than the ones that fit in with bad crowds. Or maybe being alone temporarily for a while can build you towards fitting in with people that align with you after years of working towards being something better.

What does it mean to be better? To know more and have traveled far?

In my case I have traveled enough and grown enough to understand my weaknesses. No one can hide from themselves forever you know. For me, being better has meant understanding my own ways.

To do that, I more or less disappeared. It wasn't everyone that caused me to take this long-term period of self-reflection and solitude, but it was some of them. Without them, I would've never felt the need to reflect, so at the least — I am thankful for the pains they caused me because their words and actions now have no effect on me besides building strength.

The culture of today doesn't feel like we're going in the right direction — when you say hi to someone now it's like you're interfering with their realm of being and the selfish energy is thick in the air, but that's not everyone you know. Only some people and when you stop thinking of some people as everyone, you still meet some amazing people out there in the world.

A realm where no one exists besides them is the others' solitude but they may not have had the luxury to retreat so far into themselves because of immediate survival needs. That reminds me to not be so harsh to judge those that are cold to me. You really don't know what they're dealing with.

Are you really that shocked by what's happening today? Look around at what's been happening for years now. I have felt a huge shift since the early 2010s.

The phones, the internet, the constant need for people to be entertained and admired. It's not even fun anymore, it just has gotten tiring. If it wasn't all the time, it would still be fun. But you know what they say... there is always someone out there that goes too far and ruins it for everyone. That's what a lot of these technologists have done. They're like the people that made me have to take a break for a while, but they're doing it to everyone against their will. Maybe we will thank them for it some day.

The constant stimulation is morphing people's minds into something interconnected yet separate. The closer we get, the deeper our divisions are laid bare. Something fully together but entirely apart — it becomes clear when the fog lifts. But have you seen the sun shine for a while or are you stuck under the haze?

I don't have to participate in that gloom. The constant need to be under the spell of the sky. I do what I want and move about my day.

I made a list of the last time I spoke to certain people from the past recently too. 95% of the people I've met I haven't talked to in 10 years or longer now. It'll eventually be 99%. That just shows how life moves when you have met as many people over the years as I have.

Some of these folks left in ways that aren't the way you leave someone when you have any sense of purpose, integrity, or compassion. But again, they had their own battles to fight. They weren't my battles, so I can't complain. When they brought war to me though, I made sure to remember and put up the wall for good. Now they couldn't get close without facing the trebuchets.

Certain people's worlds are like poison that you don't want anywhere near you. They carry a bad energy and develop into a black soul. Don't feel guilty for keeping them outside of the gates.

Some even make you develop a resistance to their ways. They make you need an antidote to their poisons and they are the only ones that possess the recipe. Someone like this? Leave them outside the walls as well, they will only drain your energy and sap your life-force away.

But it's the day and the times — no different from yesterday or the years before. We haven't evolved that much yet. There are still people that have transcended and others that never will. For that reason, if you're going somewhere, go — and leave all else behind.

The times have changed with new technology. There are some arguments to be made that perhaps this is really it... the start of something new. But have the people changed? Have you? Have I?

What's different about us now as humans that make us so unique from the times of the ancients? Have we even figured out anything of substance more than they did or was it all some twisted long-game?

Hardly anything from what I can see. But my teachers always told me I wasn't smart growing up, so maybe you shouldn't even be listening to someone like me anyway.

But here we are anyway — with some questions and a series of reflections. We sit with our hearts hardened to the possibility that better days are ahead. But you know something — that is the exact reason we should be hopeful. There is something powerful in challenging what has become status quo. That's why I ignore what is happening right now so it doesn't bind me, but observe it enough to empower actual change.

But what happened to the others?

Was it trauma, or was it hubris and greed? Maybe they don't think about it much so we shouldn't either. Or maybe it's really time for someone to try to intervene.

What are we even looking for anymore in this strange world?

With all these wants and needs. We want to survive and for others to see us succeed. Is it reasonable? I think so, but the format for doing so needs some amendments.

I'm not sure what the best way to live is. I'm not sure what the best way to be is either, but I am no god. I was only born man and men have never had all the answers.

It may be worth asking "why are we becoming the way we are now?" more often but also remembering we may never know.

The past 5 years have been from a realm of distant ideas and properties but the past few years have been a snowballing of truths adding up. When enough are stacked something profound can happen. A real change.

Like a foreign entanglement that many are stuck within, we work within our natures and are also bound by them. No one is inherently worse or better, we ultimately just "are". So why are we stuck here and for what reason are we really doing the things we do? That is the divine calling of this world, to go about our business without knowing for sure.

Some would say that we're living our lives the best we can so we shouldn't "worry about others" — but to me, many of these people are cowards that don't want to confront hard questions. We can't all be afraid to ask questions about what a better way forward may be.

Many of the same people end up gossiping about things they hear, and those seeking some sort of higher truth. They are confirming their own suspicions only with that type of behavior. There is nothing like being lectured by someone spouting off on some speculation about everything as a certainty, moving us forward very little, if anything at all. But it is your job to ignore them. To remember they aren't your enemy. Time is our enemy, one that will eventually take each of us down.

Of course you could try confronting this fact head on, but it's a losing battle. There is no slowing down or stopping time. There is however, using it for something better. Time is like air, impossible to even get a grasp on it, but it is there and able to be moved through with grace or clumsiness.

Really, who could blame me for taking a back seat to it all years ago now? Doing so allowed me to get clear about uncertainty in a way that empowered me instead of ruined my outlook. I've never felt more optimistic and hopeful because I realize there is no point in being a pessimist in a world we are bound to die in one day anyway.

I ask myself if anything really happened over all of those years or were all these affirmations always there, a part of some static state of being. In reality it doesn't matter because what is and what won't be will never stand.

It could be that I'm just passing by too. Like everyone else I've mentioned. The same person and personality but in another person's story.

Was I just passing by too?

Had we all just been running in circles from the get go, or were we all on some unknown and mysterious cosmic autopilot?

What were we waiting to regain before being better and shedding all the doubt? Is being better even important if no one can agree on what better is?

I was hopeful and am now more hopeful. That doesn't make me special. In a way, I'm less than I once was and that has made me whole. At one point I did think I was special, but I'm not. I'm just another person here reflecting on what we can never know and that makes me feel at peace.