Dear Future, Here’s the One Lesson I Want to Pass on to You

we each live in a present, a space for action. I no longer see you as an arrival point, far away from us on a line, or over the side of a waterfall. You, the future, are always imminent in my undecided present. We are at the center of time, and you, reading this, are also there. In both of our moments, we have so much to lose, but also so much to g

In contrast, the improvisational spirit lives inside that gap, and it can be surprisingly full of ingenuity and joy even when the situation is dire. As something we share with our nonhuman brethren, the capacity to form new responses is how you know you’re alive, today, here. So when my mum says, “whatever happens, happens,” what I hear is not resi

we each inhabit a “non-time,” a gap between the past and the future that only exists if we can hold it open with our imagination.

“Each new generation, indeed every new human being as he inserts himself between an infinite past and an infinite future, must discover and ploddingly pave it anew.”