What would it be like to talk to your future self? This could be the seed for a great story, but it also happens to be possible.
The site, futureme.org, makes this even easier. You can write an email to yourself, and the site will send it to you on the date you decide.
The possibilities are interesting... I keep an idea file, and this website immediately went into it for *future* reference.
What will you say to yourself?
And this isn't possible, but wouldn't it be cool if your future self could talk to you now?
There's a novel called Q where the MC's future self does keep coming back to him and giving him advice to avert catastrophe, and my understanding is that in the novel, whenever he obeys his future self, he just keeps making different mistakes rather than the one his future self warns him against.
ReplyDeleteMartin Seligman says the only person we don't screen as potentially lying to us is ourselves. I suspect that it wouldn't work very well to hear back from our future selves because we would believe ourselves totally...except for the parts we didn't.
So things like "You need to have confidence in yourself and stand up for what you believe in" wouldn't probably help someone who was a shrinking violet. For some of us, that kind of strength comes through experience and time. Whereas, "Marrying him is the right decision" might actually undercut the hard work the couple might do prior to getting married, and therefore end up resulting in a lousy marriage where both parties are just phoning it in.
The problem isn't not knowing the future. :-) It's not knowing *enough* of the future.
Jane, I'll have to check that novel out! I wonder if these ideas are so attractive because so many have deep regrets, and love to think, "if only..."
ReplyDeleteSo true that we are blinder to our own faults than we think.