“I want to marry AOC,” somebody said, but it wasn’t the sound of my voice; I might have thought that voice was the sound of my voice, since I heard variations of that voice all the time, but I’ve heard my voice on a recording, and they weren’t the same voice. So I said back, in the sound of that person’s voice, “You can.”
Now, AOC, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who, to be honest, I didn’t know much about, was beginning to pop up on my social media accounts. Her family was from Puerto Rico, and she’d been seeing someone on and off for years—but they never married. I admit, I was skeptical, since any time a relationship is off, it usually winds up that way. But that didn’t matter. I wanted to know what it meant that my mind’s voice—I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman—was saying this: who was I talking to? The past or the future? I assumed it was the future, since I find it unlikely that anybody from the past would’ve tried to hold a telepathic conversation—it’s much more likely, anyhow, that their voice would be more man-like than it was.
So what was this guy telling me? Past or future? I assumed that AOC was me—or the person in the conditional realm that I was talking to, and I guessed that they would have already anticipated how I would respond to this, and therein was a message. Well, based on what I know about AOC—I was never going to marry her—so that was bad, but it was encapsulated by the thought that I could marry or commit to the person that AOC represented in the conditional realm—it was a question of trust. I knew that my life would improve the closer I got to my future self—to any future that was carved out of the present. So I felt good—the message made me feel good, once I got past the bad feeling of thinking about how AOC would never marry me—and, furthermore, as a bartender, I suspected she’d had plenty of opportunities to sleep around.
But my future self, I think, anticipated that I’d think that, and they were saying that, although AOC’s background was unknown, my future with my future self was not a pipe dream. And, because of that, I’d be even happier with them than I would be with the real AOC. The only possibility, then, was that AOC should become a vessel for my future self. I realized, then, that my future self was telling me: don’t get your hopes up—for I live a long way into the future, and I can’t do anything but infuse your life with meaning—making you happy depends on whether you’re paying attention—and being realistic about what I, or they, have to offer. I assumed, then, that he meant AOC.
So that, I thought, was a successful message, and, on a bad day, I might argue that meaning is more important than happiness, but the truth is that they are so closely related that you can’t have one without some acceptable portion of the other. Then I spoke into the past by using AOC’s voice—at least I thought I was talking into the past. I said, “You can,” and I imagined that meant that some former self was asking me if they could talk to me more often—but the thoughts I’d had while talking to my future self went along with the thoughts I was having about my former self—the message I sent back into the past included the information and or warning: “I can’t make you happy, but I can give a little meaning to your life.”
I just didn’t want them chasing the dragon trying to catch up to me—I wanted them to live happy, healthy, and secure lives—without turning to mind altering substances and or experiences—things, essentially, that are bad for you—or make you unhappy in the afternoon.