What's up dude?

Dear FutureMe, I hope you are enjoying yourself. I know that right now you are groping aroudn a lot, reading aold books and thinking old thoughts, and there is almost no free brain space whatsoever. Just in the last day you thought you could become Plato, Martin Luther King Jr. and Moliere, and this morning were reading Goethe on the subway. At this point, what is old is synonymous with what is good, which keeps pulling you away from the present. in fact, I half don't believe that first sentence which instructed you to enjoy yourself, since so many people you admire are martyrs of a certain sort. So let's be frank. What do you like, beyond the impossible question of what you think you're talented at? I think it is one of the more difficult things to see clearly in the world, how talented you are, it's something that you can only see out of the corner of your eye, since once you look directly at it it seems to vanish. So then, what do you like? The answer here obviously is theater. Acting is always enjoyable, and you almost always feel succesful at it. You also enjoy being organized adn disciplined and a feeling that you are alwasy building yourself into a better person. I know you have often wondered, how is it best to build yourself? And it is easy, when looking at vast stretches of time, to feel your own identity erased, and then, in the face of vastness, not have any idea how to build yourself, since happiness, goodness and justice, which to you seem irreproachable, have differed so much from age to age, that in many ages, the most able and admired thinkers could ahve propounded entirely opposite points of view. But setting that aside, it is clear that you like thater, acting, and still harbor many unleashed desires to be a commedian. You have been writing poetry, but that has remained unsatisfying for you. You have so many doubts about how old fashioned it is, and in the end, you have doubts about your doubts, and try to muster up your courage so you can do something old fashioned for the sake of some higher ideal, or the thought that it will be appreciated by more similar minds in future times. And then, of course, you ahve doubts about htose doubts, until you are up to your neck in quicksand, and have loast all judgement. So if there is anything you could get better at by, say, a year from now, it's that: while keeping the past in mind (since it seems I can't convince you out of the past's importance) try to admit to some of your more immediate desires - if you like theater, explore the theater and acting. If it is truly without value to do soemthing you both consistently enjoy, are dazzled by, enraptured by, and have success at, then that deserves to be proved by experience. Otherwise, I commend your efforts at M&A Report. That stuff seems to be slipping out of your mind a little now and decreasing in importance. You are almost sleepwalking through it, which leads me to beleive, or at least hope, that you are headed now towards soemthing more germane to what you enjoy, or, because you don't seem to think enjoyment is a satisfactory justification, something mroe germane to waht gives you fire - for breathing fire, and having your heart broken and eyes fill with tears are things that you avhe always found the most profound affirmations that you are alive and doing what you are supposed to be doing. Pouring out love is your favorite extra curricular. Then there is Dede, an issue which I feel like I ahve to adress, because this opicture would not be complete without her. I have to say I resent her becasue I feel like she may hold me back, and make me rational and sane and have to do the things that everyone else does. I resent her becasue she feels like a rope tying me to a harbor I don't want to be docked at. The thought process I'm all too familiar with goes: how ma I supposed to fullfill a great destiny, to be the new Mohammed, Jesus, St. Augustine, and so on, if I am tethered to a wife, and a life of the flesh? Buddha, and many many others have thought it necessary to give up the flesh to understand a higher reality, and there is nothing I would like to be recognized for more after I am gone than, like Plato or Lao Tze or Chuang Tze, than to be recognized for bringing some rare slice of reality into the world. But at the same time, I am in love with her, and when I am with her, feel like there is nothing else I would want - all those dreams become faint and have a hollow, old sound to them. Her smell is wonderful, and I have an unexplainable urge when I wake up in the morning to have her in my bed and crawl in with her. I would talk to her constantly if I could, and have her always sitting next to me. But as that kind of scenario is impossible, I dream of other things. Well, Judy is pressing me to do pages. May your life be full of vigor and success and failure, full of risk and both reward and setback. May it be full of color, and full of love. And lastly, may you never give up, and never feel like the path before you is already determined, and you no longer have a hand in your own fate. With all my heart, Mark