Great Expectations

Isn't this futuristic present we live in amazing? We got what our fathers and mothers wanted. We can go to the moon. We can live on Mars. We can achieve any goal anyone's got the chops to dream up. So why don't we live in peace and harmony where people don't fuck each other up with weapons and words? Pff. You can't just get rid of your shadow cause it scares you.

We are the ones in charge. Our ancestors are dead. Our children will take over in time. For now, our hand's on the wheel. We're steering the ship. Will we weather the storm of the 21st century? Will humans make it through to the year 3030? Oh, fuck yeah, my friend. I can tell you right now that I've seen the future and it's dope as hell. Think Willy Wonka's factory on shrooms or Alice all strung out on Gorilla Glue. It's De Quincey doing ice plunges and sauna.

Let's biohack our way through the jungle. Let's carve out a whole new skin for ourselves. There ain't no limit to what can be done with ten fingers and two halves of a brain. Our organs and skinsacks bring us together and our soul sits somewhere in the middle. Actually, it runs through your whole body, everyone's bodies and everything all the time like a neon green grid shooting through all of everything from here to the underside of eternity.

It's nice to live a simple life full of simple pleasures. I'm pretty sure of... I'm absolutely certain that... If there's one thing I know, it's... Nah. There's no truths in my tank other than the fact that I know I'm a human. Shit. I'm not even sure about that. For all I know, I'm a brain in a bath or a robot's sick fantasy. I could be a simulation or an algorithm or a bacterial nightmare. I could be the unforeseen side effect of photosynthesis and aerobic respiration. What the fuck is a human body but a bundle of question marks and assumptions.

I expect the world to still be here when I wake up. I expect the leaves to turn yellow. I expect the rain to fall from the clouds. But more than this, I expect people to be chill and shitty with each other. I expect us to make incredible gains and terrible mistakes. I expect to feel joy and sadness, heartbreaking happiness and punch-in-the-gut grief. I expect I'll clench my fist and shout Why! at the sky and I expect no one to answer. I accept I'm too basic a bundle to comprehend the true meaning of the multiverse but I can at least pretend, goddammit. I'm gonna assume I understand everything. I'm gonna play like I know it all. Ask me a question. Anything except math. Or science. Or history. Or geography, politics, the events and occurrences in the houses around me. I know nothing apart from what goes on in my head and even that's pretty shaky. Who am I really? I don't know. What do I want? Who cares. This is about/for/because of you, dear benevolent and gracious good reader.

Let me feed you cold grapes and whisper cold truths in your ear. You're the greatest, says the snake in the grass in the plains of my mind. My brain is a location and I'll pin it for you. Meet me at the crossroad of our neocortices. Feel our amygdalae twist around each another like tendrils in the night. Feel blindly alongside me, oh angelic one, and let's make our way into the unknown.

Behind us, the great apes gape and Neanderthals nod in approval. The australopithecines do their own thing to the side. What do I know about human evolution? Oh, very little. I do know that reading about the deep history of our species has blown my noodle like a pink labradoodle.

It's fuckin crazy to think that Life took her first steps 4 billion years ago and since then, we became multicelled, grew spines, came outta the water, developed language, created AI and finally understood that we are all One.