50 years (final)

SECTIONCODE: 44-food-utt
SECTION: food
SUBSECTION: under the table
HED:
SUBHED:
STARS:
P/Q: Futuristic postal workers have delivered this email to you because I asked it to or because I am dead.

W/C:
TEXT:



Written: December 2009, Deliver: December 2059
Subject: What if
Dear Future Self,
When you get this I hope you are sitting down. This is Angie Wong writing to you from 2009. futuris.tk, a site created by futuristic postal workers, has delivered this email to you because I asked it to or because I am dead.
It’s the last days of 2009, and I’m having a bit of a reflection period looking backward and forward. I haven't thought about what the future me will look like since I was 18 and strapped to a chair for a tattoo. But 2009 has given me pause and allowed ample time to think about the future.
I wonder what kind of world you are living in. Is it better now than it was 50 years ago? Was it how Al Gore predicted it would be? What got me on this line of thought was something that happened 50 years ago today:
My current and I went for caffeine and took in the weekend papers. I dived for the soft core news and read about restaurants abroad while he went for the review and sport pages. I gave death eyes to the columnist I used to love reading as I had just discovered his words are paid for by advertisers. Sunday papers are my diet of current affairs.
At the back of one weekend magazine I was taking in an advert, this season’s Tiffany holiday campaign. It was a full page photo of the back of a well-groomed man holding that internationally recognisable blue box, eagerly awaiting the door to open, and his answer. "You like that ad, don’t you?" my current lowered his paper to ask. "It calls to me," I responded. He kissed my shoulder and we shared a fuzzy feeling. As we laid head to head all I could think of was how this moment was sponsored by Tiffany.
So many of life’s big moments are sponsored by brands today I don’t know if I naturally feel emotions or if it was thought up by a really smart person on Madison Avenue who’s taught me to go warm and fuzzy at the thought of aqua blue. My worry for future years is whether this life is actual or manufactured.
I’ve met people named Mercedes, Pret, and Chanel. My friend in school was named after his parent’s favourite brand of toilet paper; my sister was named after a burger chain; my first boss was named after a car that her parents couldn’t afford. Tissues are Kleenex, cotton swabs are Q-tips, copies are Xeroxes. Google is a company as well as a verb. Every item on my desk, everything I’m wearing, has a branding budget of $100 million or more. Our generation might be the first to have entirely been brought up from birth on the language of brands. So, 50 years on, I have this to ask: how did you turn out? Did you have real moments, or did you have Kodak moments?
I hope you’ve read the books you wanted, and travelled to the places you’ve wanted, because, from where I’m standing, seeing the world, experiencing first-hand experiences, and coming to your own conclusions through reading and listening to multiple sources may be the only chance we get to be a real, actual person with real, actual thoughts today.
So what kind of life did it turn out to be Angie Wong?
In closing, there are a few things you need to know, or rather be reminded of: Those lumpy bits, that's from eating straight pork fat in your youth. And all those obsessive tendencies turned out to be a good thing didn't it? Time did heal all –you can’t even remember their names I bet! Turns out you didn't need all those shoes, did you?
Future me, did you marry for love, convenience or money? Was it love at first sight or love in hindsight? Have you spawned? Are you still climbing every mountain/ swimming every ocean/ crossing every desert? Who is making you do that? What's his name? Have you lived up to your potential like you had promised or have you forgotten what those were? Are you still a trouble maker? I hope you are doing exactly what you were doing 50 years ago, but maybe with a bit more grace. ; )
Wish you were here. Loving life.
Me.