E-Mails to My Past Self: 5 Facts I Wish I Could Send Back in Time
Let me be perfectly frank: I didn’t pick this topic on my own and I never would have. My editor came up with it. He liked the idea of my writing something that dug deeper into my life. I’m not exactly sure why that is since I’m a professional writer, not a UFC grappler. I’m not even one of those haunted, drunken writers like Edgar Allan Poe who’s trying to disgorge the horror in his soul onto the printed page before it bursts out of his chest like the creature from Alien. So, there aren’t going to be any emails that say, “After you kill the hobo, bury him in the woods instead of under the pile of leaves in the front yard.”
Worse yet, the idea of changing things that have already happened in my life is scary. When everything is going great, the natural tendency is to keep doing the same thing. On the other hand, my failures are what have spurred me to work harder and reach for more. If I went back in time and fixed those issues so that it was all smooth sailing, I might be a poorer male version of Paris Hilton — and who the hell wants that? Then there’s the frightening possibility that I could make some small change to my timeline that would have major ramifications today à la The Butterfly Effect. Come to think of it, that’s the one to really fear…
1) Dear 15-year-old John:
I’m writing you from the future to let you know that you’re going to have some people try to bully you. It’s not going to be your fault. You don’t start trouble with anyone or cause problems; you just try very hard to avoid conflict and bullies can smell that the way a shark smells blood.
There’s a solution to this: It’s called hitting the bullies in the mouth. You’ll use that tactic effectively as you get older, but it would save you a lot of worry and stress if you embraced it earlier. Getting in fights isn’t so bad. In fact, I did Southern Longfist Kung-Fu in college, and you know what I learned? I can take and deliver a punch that would knock a mule down. Not only that, it’s a lot of fun to hit another human being as hard as you can. There are not a lot of times when it’s moral to do that, but when you’re being bullied in high school, it’s perfectly fine. Avoid trouble if you can, but if someone insists on starting a fight, oblige him. Win or lose, you get to keep your self-respect and the more fights you get in, the better you’ll be at it.
I got this response back:
Dear future John:
Thank you for the great advice. I fight all the time now! At school, on the street corner, at Juvenile Hall — it’s great! Of course, after a hobo mouthed off to me last night, I did go a little overboard and beat him to death. But no worries, I buried him under a pile of leaves in the front yard, so no one will ever find him!
1. Tofu IS bean curd. Just thought you ought to know.
2. In other words, as the song goes, “You can’t win, you can’t break even, and you can’t even quit the game.” There’s a show tune for every occasion.
3. Message from the present to myself in 2009: Two things. A. Go on the National Review post-election cruise in 2010, get access to Andrew Breitbart, and warn him about his heart condition. Memorize some of the next few weeks’ headlines so as to have credibility. B. Become a financial backer for the Broadway run of “The Book of Mormon.” It’s more fun than the stock market.
FWIW: That 16-year-old in the past sounds suspiciously contemporary. Just sayin’.
Never would have worked for mee. I couldn’t throw a punch; just would have got hurt. Besides, the bullies never followed their own rules, and would tell the teacher.
I suppose better advice for me would have been:
“Don’t let the bullies make the rules. There’s nothing wrong with running away.”
But I wouldn’t have listened.
As an adult, yelling “police” seems to work.
really ….what a d!ck, no stock tips!
Dear 2012 John:
Develop that emails-from-the-future piece into a screen treatment. Going back in time movies have been done to death. So have movies where people switch bodies. But this seems fresh. You have talent. You have to keep pushing it to see how far it will take you. Watch some old movies and see what crap people turned out that made them rich and famous. You can turn out crap too! Go for it.
Sincerely,
Future blogger John full of regret
Long Fist! Good choice. Big punch! Throw in a No Shadow kick. Keep training. Sifu says: “Strong chi will help keep America free!”
Combin a few tropes, have your early self learn Kung Fu and then pummel crooked bankers, stockbrokers and politicians so they don’t make it from the past to 2008, where they cause all kinds of problems….
Just saying
Interesting idea. Reminds me of an episode of Northern Exposure.
I don’t believe this is true. This just seems like a scam to me. I tried to send e-mails to my past self, but the only response I got was from some loser named “MAILER DAEMON.”