A letter from January 24th, 2016

Dear Future, well, now present version of Quinton: I hope everything in the world is going well with you. I don't know if you're too lazy to do the math but right now I've just turned 20 a couple days ago and I'm looking at this big decade in front of me and wondering about everything that's going to happen. A lot of things, obviously, would have happened, things I wouldn't have ever dreamed of, and I hope -- some things that I have hoped for and am working towards have become a reality. I'm not a teenager anymore. I still feel like a little 14 year-old inside, and perhaps at most, a 17 year-old. Okay, maybe a 19 year-old... But at the same time, I feel like I have kind of locked in during my early youth: not entirely, but a big part of what I fell in love with, musically and artistically happened during those formative years. And of course, I'm still knee-deep in these years we call "formative". I hope you still remember what I mean. Anyone else will think it's rambling, but it's stuff I (we?) think about a lot. There's a theory which says there's no real past, present, and future. I'm going to butcher what I just learned last semester and say that, perhaps for the sake of poetic imagery, that the B-theory of time is real: we just have events ordered by the earlier-than-relation. Right now, as I'm writing this, you're alive, living your life. Right now, as you're reading this, I would have just sent this message, or eating dinner, or anything -- and the 14 year-old versions are just as alive, too. That makes no sense for me to actually conceptualize... But what I want to say is that I'd like to think that you're real, that you're happy, that you are doing things that are important not just to yourself but to the bigger picture. I've always wanted to make a difference. I hope that want has not been tossed aside. And I want you to think that I'm just as real too, even though I was the "past", that I'm 'gone'. Once, you really were 20 years old. You really were slightly hungover on a Sunday morning after a fruitful birthday weekend of drunken dancing and conversation. Are you happy with the person you've become? In some perverted sense, what I do now is going to affect who you are today, and what's going on in your life. I hope I will do things that make you proud, satisfied, that "Wow, the early 20's Quinton wasn't a total idiot. He cared about his future-self." I want to tell you something a little more personal: I'm very scared of my twenties. All my life I've been a kid. All my life I've been able to delegate responsibility to some older person if I absolutely needed to. I liked to call the shots, sure, but sometimes, if I didn't know what to do, I could ask someone to make the choices for me. I realized just last night that I can't do that anymore: I really am an adult. Technically, I became an adult when I turned 18, and was able to purchase alcohol when I was 19 -- but man, turning 20 is a different ballpark altogether. It's a milestone, a marker of a new decade. I'm scared of getting old. Are you still scared of getting old? If you are, I know that you can cope with it, that you can embrace time and mortality. That's the kind of person I am today, and I know it is so fundamental to me that you will still hold onto this core belief, this mindfulness and love and appreciation for things because of their transience, not in spite of it -- that things are made more beautiful because they don't last. And my youth won't last. Just listing out the years left until I'm 30: 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29. Decades look so short when you string them out like that, when you really visualize them. I'm not saying that you being 30 means you're old, but conventionally speaking, there's some association with youthful recklessness, discovery, and a sort of 'flame' that burns bright, like this chase for fireworks scattering across the sky. I am sure though, that this chase, this unshakeable wanderlust and wonder for all things real and beautiful still has hold of you. It is part of what makes 'me', 'me'. Now onto some other big, and maybe even silly things: Are you in a relationship? Married, even? Right now, I'm single. I don't know how I feel about it. Sometimes it seems nice to perhaps be in some sort of relationship, other times it feels terrible. I don't know what I want, really. How is the family doing? I just had lunch with Steph yesterday, and she bought me a pair of receiver gloves for my birthday. I hope one day I can provide things for her and make her happy. It's always been kind of hard, being the younger sibling, but I think I've been putting it off for far too long: we're both 'closer' than ever. As you get older that 4 year disparity really dissipates. And of course, how is mom doing? I sent her flowers for my birthday, remember? I love her so much, even though I'm so bad at saying it out loud. I worry about her health. I hope it's not something that I need to worry about. How are the friends? How is Emma, Mariko, Kyle, Kelsey, Jon, John, Molly, Reuben, Loic, Karl, and Alana doing? I missed a ton of people, but that's just the ones off the top of my head. I hope we're all still happy, close, and (occasionally, and much less occasionally, I'm sure) partying together. I can't imagine what our parties look like now. Are we drinking less and eating more? Doing potlucks? Chris talks about how people in his program all do potlucks. I feel like that's something 30 year-olds do. What's the biggest change in your life? Have you *gasp* had kids? Wow. Wowww. If so, I'm not even surprised. If not, well, sweet. More $$$ to save. How's the music going? This is the scariest question to ask. I'm so invested in this and so scared of failing, even though I feel like it's so hard to really get anything going. We just finished "What Happened" back in November, and now I'm kind of at an impasse: I don't really know what to do from here or where to take it. It's a bit like a writer's block. Mariko is coming over later, though, perhaps we'll go over some unfinished songs and record new material. I am so ambitious about this stuff. I really want to make money producing. Yes, I'm making some money now... Like, not enough to do anything with. I want to make things that are beautiful, too. I hope that artistic passion is still burning bright, and that you are sharing more of your light with the world than I am today. Finally, I am sure that there are many regrets but I won't ask you about them. They are what they are, and they serve as lessons. ****, why am I trying to enlighten you? That makes absolutely no sense. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is -- what I want to ask you is, what are some really good decisions that you made? I can't imagine all the billion, ka-jillion choices you had to make in the last ten years: from saying yes to going out with someone, to going on some trip, or, god, I don't know. What are you proud of having said yes (or no) to? How did it change your life? I'm sure that there are so, so many more good decisions than bad ones. Life is good, and you know that. I hope that you encompass and exemplify the goodness of life through your own. Well, future Quinton, thanks for reading all this. I really do hope you get it. It seems weird, writing a letter to myself, so far, far into the future. It seems like a different planet, or something. Off it goes. Time is so odd, life is odd. I want to say I love you, even though that sounds narcissistic, like I'm loving myself, but I know that you aren't quite me: you're slightly different, although we share the same name and psychological continuity. I want to say I love you because you deserve it, from 20 year old Quinton to 30 year old Quinton. You earn all the goodness that happens to you, all the wonderful things that seem lucky and impossible: you are loved, and you always will be. Thank you for choosing to love others too. With peace and hope, Quinton