Today and Tomorrow, Kinected; Or, The One Where I Need To Learn How To Use Footnotes

As many of you who follow videogames (or really any sort of tech website [or have watched some TV in the last 9 months]) know, the Microsoft Kinect was recently launched. Microsoft hopes this will be a big seller, and will extend the shelf life of its Xbox 360 for a few more years. However, I believe that it could be the start of a revolution in how we interact with electronic devices.

(Very long side note: Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft all estimate the shelf life of their gaming hardware to be ten years. That means we won't be getting a new Microsoft gaming console until 2015, with Nintendo and Sony a year behind that. There are numerous problems with that. With the ridiculous rate of progress on processors, RAM, memory, and essentially everything computer-related [sadly, not so much with batteries, but slow and steady wins the race right? {unless, of course, the turtle ran on batteries, in which case it probably won't make it to the finish line}], it is only a matter of time before these machines will be outpaced by complex games that could show up on computers around 2014 [this is wild speculation without any facts or evidence whatsoever]. Can the Wii really survive with its bad graphics for another 6 years? The Wii's not even halfway through with its life, and its sales have already dramatically dropped off. I would hope that sometime in the next 2-3 years a WiiHD or something similar will show up, not with the same capabilities of a PS3 or Xbox 360 but with something that can at least hold its own on graphic-intensive games. I see one of the Wii's problems being that it is marketed to the casual gamer, with games that don't really have anything to do with traditional gaming and its cheap-in-comparison price point. This works out great for the huge previously-untapped market of everyone who doesn't play videogames, but the very nature of their demographic defeats future reaping of revenue. A casual gamer or a non-gamer, by definition, use their game systems casually, and thus are much less inclined to buy numerous games in the future, especially with the novelty of the Wii wearing off [and let's be honest, much of the success of this console has to do with its semi-gimmicky controller {though the low price was probably a much bigger reason}]. Consoles make the majority of their money on games, and while selling games with expensive peripherals [(Rock Band, Wii Fit, Duck Hunt {yea, I went there}] can bring in the profits like no one's business, only a select few games can thrive when the equipment needed to play the game ends up costing more than the hardware. This leaves the PS3 and Xbox 360, with their base of dedicated gamers, with the advantage in game-selling in the next few years. However, they both have sold significantly less than the Wii and thus I'm not sure how much of an advantage it really is.

One of the ways to alleviate the problems of a ten-year shelf life of a set piece of hardware in an environment where development proceeds at an exponential rate is for the makers to release updates every few years to retain interest in their product. The PS3 Slim, the new XBox 360, the Playstation Move, the Kinect, hopefully the WiiHD all fall under of this category. While not new consoles, they change the way in which the console is used [at least in the case of Move and Kinect], increasing the time it is still relevant. [Perhaps a better way to keep sales high are price drops, which is mentioned by bloggers a lot, especially this year. None of the Big 3 systems have had a price drop since last holiday season, which means that sales this year will be significantly down. Though, more price drops mean less profit per console, and I'm sure all three companies are trying every way they can to crunch the numbers and drop their prices by $20-30 while still retaining a good profit margin [{or not losing too much}]. However, neither Kinect nor Move have any games that are interesting enough to justify shelling out a hundred dollars or so on two different attempts to capture some of the Wii's casual-gamer magic. Really, at what point will "you can use your controller like a fishing rod! We should make an entire game based on this" reach the end of novelty? [Side-note-within-a-side-note {I'm going Inception of yo asses!}: I am so glad that 3-D has finally gotten past the point of a novelty and is now actually being used to bring the audience further into a film. I grew tired of "Oh wow, the rock is coming right at me, duck!" at about age 12, as I am sure all of us did. I attribute this shift to serious 3-D to Avatar, in which it was implemented to envelop Pandora around the watcher {"We need to go deeper!" side-note: How stupid is it to name a planet "Pandora". Should anybody be surprised that there is stuff trying to kill you on a planet named that? Same with "Unobtainium". James Cameron, your naming of imaginary objects has severely limited your made-up characters' abilities to achieve their ((let's be honest here, extremely one-dimensional and archetypal)) goals. Jerk.}. How To Train Your Dragon had some gimmicky 3-D sections in it, but we're on the right path.] I'm not sure how much longer these guys can milk these gimmicks. I can only hope that in the future motion controllers and Kinect-like motion-sensing can be integrated into a game rather than having them be the whole point of buying the game. I can't see this happening to a huge extent with Move, because in the end it is a controller that's main purpose is being able to swing it around and having that picked up by the PS3. The Kinect, however... I can see some good stuff with this. What a perfect segue into what this post is actually about.]

The idea behind the Kinect is a simple one and arises from a simple question: What if people could play videogames and not have to use controllers? It is similar to the concept of the Wii Remote (What if you can interact with your videogames through the use of real-life movements?), but takes it a few steps further. It works through numerous motion sensors and cameras, and is able to capture your movements and translate them to the game. So, if you wave your hand around, the character in the game will do likewise. Concepts like this, where interaction of electronic devices is devoid of peripheral mediums, have been in science fiction for decades, and everyone sees that as the future. Well, with the Kinect, the beginning of the future may have just arrived.

There are innumerable concept items that do incredible things. Machines that can be controlled by our brains, robots that can have conversations with people, cars that can drive themselves; these have all been done in some way, but are lacking in the most important feature: mass production. While it's terrific that researchers have been able to do these things, many roadblocks are in the way to creating large amounts of their product and subsequently making them ubiquitous throughout the world. That they cost too much and that they can only complete their actions in a controlled environment are two of the biggest obstacles. A car may be able to drive itself, but maybe when there are only limited variables it must take into account. A robot may be able to talk to humans and understand both words and vocal patterns, but it probably costs hundreds of thousands of dollars and countless man-hours to do this. One day, perhaps all of these ideas will make it to the market and become integral in our lives, but until then they are just concepts and will most likely be subject to countless delays and numerous failed products (Jetpack, anyone? What about a Segway?) It is in this way that Microsoft succeeds. It has taken a relatively revolutionary product and introduced it to the market. They are hoping to sell 5 million Kinects this quarter.

This isn't a post about how great the Kinect is as a product. In fact, I'm pretty sure I would not enjoy using it. The games are all gimmicky, a very large amount of space is needed for it to work, and only a few people can utilize the motion sensors at one time. I might go for it in about a year, when better games are released and a larger local multiplayer is available. However, I think the technology in the Kinect will go way past videogames I think Kinect will be remembered for two things: medium-free gesturing and 3-D rendering (more on that in the next paragrpah). You can scroll through menus and select items through the movement of your hand and nothing else! The possibilities of this concept are nearly-endless. It could completely redefine the way humans interact with machines. Imagine your laptop as resembling a tablet; just one big screen with some cameras in the bezel. You sift through folders with a flick of your wrist in the air; you zoom in by making your hand into a fist and bringing it towards you; you rotate three-dimensional models by pretending to hold it in your hands. You don't have a keyboard, because the laptop can project the image of a keyboard onto a surface and when you hit the image of a letter it will appear on screen. These ideas for how a computer will work have been around forever (as well as the idea that screens will be holograms, but i have no idea how that will be physically possible. Wouldn't it require the ability to stop a beam of light at a certain point? If someone could figure that out, then thanks.), but until now have always been a concept. I'm sure some of these things, like the projector keyboard, are already around, albeit in very limited quantity. But this is Microsoft. They have a customer base in the hundreds of millions, and more than enough money to devote to researching these things. I can't imagine they will stop this implementation of medium-free gesturing at a videogame console; rather, I think this is just the beginning. Microsoft is sitting on a gold mine here, the technology that will almost certainly replace the current mode of interaction with electronic devices. And I can't imagine they don't know this. There are many articles out there already about how people have hacked the Kinect to use it in extraordinary ways (see here and here), and it's hasn't been out for a month yet. I can only hope that in time, Microsoft will implement this technology into other products, with even better hardware that allows for a multitude of processes that are only ideas at the moment. (Note: I know that many smartphones have this medium-free gesturing, which did not originate from the iPhone but was popularized by it. However, a fundamental problem with touch-based gesturing is that it is only two-dimensional. It is not a problem with the products that use it, but will be a problem in implementing this technology in other devices in the future. The fact that no 3-D object can be sufficiently rotated will be a huge setback to these machines, as I predict that soon most visualizations will be in this form. Processors will reach the point where free rotation at at any angle will be possible with no lag, allowing for a 360 degree view of an object [in a spherical way, as in any angle you so choose rather than just being able to spin it on a single axis. I'm not sure if this is actually considered "360 degrees", but I digress]. Imagine looking at a virtual house and being able to look at both the outside and inside from any angle you want. Maneuvering through this will be possible to do on a screen where there is no possibility of depth perception, however using your hands in open in space is much more intuitive and will be used predominantly. 3-D screens will also help all of this, but that is not the point of this post.)

The other major milestone in the Kinect is 3-D rendering. What this means is that a computer or other device is able to look at an area and virtually render it. As in, it understands where each object is in relation to other objects. This is not only useful for people observing the screen where this is rendered, but also allows for greater interaction between machines and humans. Robots will be able to better navigate obstacles, and pick up things, because they will have essentially a basic form of eyesight equivalent to what organisms have.

With these two technologies, the increased interaction between humans and robots will go both ways. People will better be able to interact with their machines by having a third dimension to use, and machines will better interact with people for the same reason. I should make it clear that the Kinect is not by any means the first creation of either of these technologies. Both have been around for some time, however they are used very sparingly and not in common products. The reason this is so revolutionary is that a large corporation that reaches into nearly every household in this country is releasing this product at an affordable price. This allows for a fast and widespread dissemination of the product. Millions of families will quickly become accustomed to medium-free gesturing, and hackers and tinkerers will use the technology to do things previously unachievable. Microsoft will continue to research this, as I'm sure other companies will as well, and this type of gesturing will become common and replace a piece of hardware such as a remote or mouse of what is "normal". This will take at least a few years, most likely more, but the first domino has now fallen. It is now a question of when, and not if, the implications of this will find its way into our daily lives.

Time Killed the TV Star; Or, Kramer vs. Kramer

A few weeks ago Mel, Paulina, Liz, and Jamie were over and I decided that we were going to watch some Seinfeld and it was going to cause them to fall in love with the show and want to watch every episode, and then we could make allusions to the show together and laugh for a long time (like what I do with Tejas all the time!) Well, we watched two episodes, they laughed a few times, and then they went on with their Seinfeld-free lives. It appears my pipe dream was not to be. (side note: possible title for a book: "Pipe Dreams: Smoking Hallucinogens and the Vaporizer Revolution" [or, perhaps more fitting for my writing style, "Pipe Dreams: How Super Mario Bros. Helped Unclog the 1980's Plumber Shortage"]) I really do wish they would like that show, and I think they would love it if they watched it for a while. Right now the Beatles' "Let It Be" is playing, and if that's a sign that I should give up on this endeavor, then I'm just going to ignore it. Maybe one day, they'll see it on TV and watch it, and it'll be a really good episode from the 4th or 5th season and they'll laugh really hard and decide maybe they'll want to watch some more the next time it comes on. Baby steps. Anyways, I'm not here to complain that my friends aren't watching my favorite TV shows. Well, that's not the only reason I'm here. So let's press on.

In high school, I watched almost exclusively comedy shows (save for that strange month-long obsession with 90's Law and Order). The four shows I will talk about here, and the shows I watched a lot during that time, are Seinfeld, Scrubs, The Office, and South Park (note: after finishing this, it turns out I didn't talk about South Park or the Office at all. Oops). Everyday, I used to come home, turn on the TV, and watch a recorded episode of one of these shows. First was Seinfeld, from 7th grade to my freshman year; next was the Office, during my sophomore and junior year; then Scrubs, during junior and senior year. South Park I watched online in about four or five months after my senior year of high school and during the first few months of college. In all of these shows, I would watch an episode, then rewatch it a few weeks later, then probably watch it again at some point. Suffice to say, I have seen just about every episode of these show (up to Season 4 of the Office and Season 7 of Scrubs, all of Seinfeld and South Park) at least three or four times. In some cases, like Seinfeld, I've seen most episodes probably five or six times. It will get to the point where I can recite the lines that the characters say through most of the episode. Anyways, so after this I would usually have a backlash where I wouldn't watch the show because I oversaturated it, and then after a few months or years I could start watching it. For example, after my freshman year I didn't really watch Seinfeld again until maybe senior year. Anyways, later on, when I would start watching the shows again, I noticed I was drawn to the earlier episodes of the show, usually the first two seasons or so. I was not sure why I did this, and have been thinking about this a lot. When I started rewatching Seinfeld, I would mostly focus on the episodes from 1989 to 1991, and maybe some 92's. (I'm going to be talking Seinfeld here for a while, then maybe bring in the other shows every once in a while as examples. Maybe.) These were the first few season of the show, the ones that were generally overlooked in favor of the most popular episodes from 1994 on. So, why would I only care about watching the older episodes of Seinfeld, and not the newer ones? Here a few different explanation I could make about it, and whether I think they're right or wrong. (The next part might be a little boring to you, so if you want feel free to skip the next three paragraphs and read from there)

1) The older episodes were not as talked about, and as a "true fan" I felt I should know these episodes really well and watch them more than normal people who watch the show: ok, this one sounds pretty pretentious, but think about if you're a fan of a band. I know I love the Beatles, and when I see a bootleg album that looks interesting I'll download it (here's a great link for that btw http://tinyurl.com/29bczpc). Or, if you really like Eminem or Jay-Z or someone, you'll look for basement tapes or unreleased mix tapes or something like that. You know, you want the stuff that most people haven't heard, because of not only the insights you'll gain from them (more on that later), but because as a real fan you've taken the time to look for this and you're rewarded with stuff most people haven't heard. So, I thought for a while this was why I wanted to watch these episodes, but I've decided that that isn't the case. Considering Seinfeld is such an old show, and hardly ever talked about these days, just being a fan in high school makes you a "true fan". I'm one of the only people that watched Seinfeld religiously in middle school and high school, so there's no reason for me to feel like I had to watch the older episodes just to be a "better" fan than other people.

Well, I've pretty much run out of wrong reasons why I thought I'd watch the older episodes. To be honest, for a long time I just didn't know, I just found these episodes to be better. They weren't necessarily funnier, or more heartfelt; I just liked them. In Seinfeld, I think the reason I like the old ones better (finally getting to the point of this post...) is because I felt like I was just spending time with the people I had grown to know and love. Now, for some Seinfeld history (don't worry, not too much).

Seinfeld is considered a "show about nothing". In that sense, there was no plot twist like in most shows (where the main character has just gotten off a divorce or just married or there's something different about him/her that drives some episodes), and the episodes dealt with the daily lives of the characters. One episode would be about finding a car in a parking garage, another would be about waiting for a table at a chinese restaurant, etc. It's just people going about their lives. Because of this seemingly lack of plot, much of the show relied on the characters. There's George, who tries harder than anyone I've ever seen at not working; Jerry, whose distant, sarcastic observations were so terrific it caused me to emulate that personality; Kramer, the compulsive, spastic neighbor who is always entangling himself in other people's probelms (while creating many of his own); and Elaine, the girl who tries hard but always seems to fail. Of course, these are what these characters become as the show progresses. When the show starts, they're just four normal people living in New York. That, I think, is why I love watching the older episodes: the characters are like real people. They're not stereotypes or one-dimensional, they're just people (this does not apply to Kramer, who was always sort of one-dimensional). George's character was one of a lazy person, and this defined his actions much of the time. But he was not always lazy and deceitful. Much of the time he did what anyone else would do. I often say that in the earlier episodes "personality defined actions", while in later episodes "actions defined personality". By this, I mean that at the beginning, the characters were regular people just like you and me, and like you and me they had personality traits. Jerry, the stand-up comedian, was observant and somewhat distant. Because of this, he would act like this sometimes, making witty observations about other people and generally not embroiling himself in problems. But other than this, he went about his life normally. George was a normal person with a lazy personality, so every once in a while he would cut corners or do something to make things easier for himself. However, later on in the show, the characters became archetypes of this. Jerry was always the one who would make sarcastic, biting observations about others in misery, George would be lazy and angry, and Elaine would be quick-tempered and incompetent. Their actions were predictable, and they acted like this at all times, and so their personalities became like this.

As I watch a show, I grow to love it and cherish it, and I feel like the characters exist and I know them intimately. I know what has happened to them, I know how they think, etc. In older episodes, the characters are generally more rounded, and not as much is going on in the plot (or at least, what is going on is more realistic and every-day. In the earlier episodes, I feel like I am just watching some people go about their lives. They aren't in the middle of something crazy that wouldn't happen in real life, they're not archetype characters that exist only on TV, they're just normal people going about their day. I love these characters so much, and I feel like by watching the old episodes, I am spending time with the people I love. I can hang out with Jerry as he tries to handle George's girl problems and the awkwardness of being friends with an ex, or be with Elaine while she tries to make a name for herself at her job. It's like I'm getting an inside look at who these people are, and just enjoy some time with them. I don't know if that sounds really pathetic, but I don't care. I love the first season of Scrubs because J.D. is what I would expect a first-year medical intern to be be like: quiet, observant, trying to do well but often overwhelmed, has crazy thoughts in his head, sometimes funny. Later on, he becomes somewhat one-dimensional in that he is either slapstick funny with his inner monologues and his antics, or completely serious about dramatic stuff. Nobody is completely serious one minute and completely silly the next, people are usually a mix of them. In the first season, J.D. is a real person, and one of my friends.

Now, many of you have seen the fatal flaw in my thought process. These characters are not "real" in any form of the word; they are things made up by other people and played by other people. The situations they are in are contrived, and their personalities are decided by a group of writers. Honestly, I don't know how to reconcile that with my feelings about the characters. I guess I'm just going to ignore it. There's also no point in watching earlier episodes of the show in hopes of learning more about the character, because the character is made up and thus has to change over the course of a show as the people who make him change. Eminem was still Eminem five years ago, obviously with different viewpoints but still with the same background. By listening to the Beatles' early music, you can retroactively see where their music was going to go. You can track how Kanye West has changed over the years. You cannot do this to characters on TV, as they have no history, have nowhere to go, and only exist in the moment. You can fake this as best you can for as long as you can, but eventually it will fail because the mind that created this character will change, and invariably so will the cahracter. Alas, it would appear that all we have of the characters we know and love are those short 20 minutes in which we can spend time with them and enjoy a few adventures. I guess that's all I can ask for.

Duality

You know that moment, the one where everything suddenly falls into place? The one where everything is suddenly illuminated in front of you, and the surrounding fog has vanished? When you spend weeks, months, even years attempting to discern all you can, and you feel you have it, but only loosely? Then in a split second the jigsaw pieces fit.

I like that feeling.

The thing is, this feeling cannot last long, because to know is to understand what you do not know. And it is only in absolute comprehension that you realize what you have is just another piece in an even larger puzzle.

I like that feeling too.

It is both intimidating and invigorating to become aware of the vastness in front of you, even if you can only grasp at this knowledge for an instant before it recedes away. Recognition of ignorance dispels ignorance.

Socrates once said, "The only real wisdom is knowing you know nothing." Wisdom comes from that tiny split-second when it all makes sense, and suddenly you are able to look out from your plateau, and all you see is a great plain stretching out in all directions with no end in sight. It simultaneously makes your heart pound and drop out of your chest. You breathe fast, and not at all. You go numb, and feel everything at once. Your vision blurs, and you have never seen more clearly. It is in that open vastness that you see the unconquerable, the forever free, that which can never be obtained. And in this moment nirvana is reached; waves of calm wash upon the beaches that harbor your fears, you trepidations, your thoughts. You know all and you know none.

As quickly as the moment comes, it is gone, and you are back.

Nostalgia in a Time Capsule; Or, Hello from the Past

Is it ever weird to you that you are able to see yourself from years ago? Like, we all know you can see pictures that were taken of you, and look at yourself and think, "Aw, I was so cute back then." But, you can see much more than that. You have the ability to put yourself back into the shoes you wore earlier in your life (metaphorically, you're feet have probably grown since then). Take Facebook, for example. If you scroll down far enough on your own homepage, you can look at the things you and others wrote years earlier. It's especially easy if you do the filter that just shows the posts you've made, and instantly you are able to track your growth/progression through your status updates. Just a few minutes ago I read a fb message I had sent someone two years earlier. Or go to your photos, and on the first one click previous, and go through your pictures in reverse. You are seeing yourself from most likely two to three years ago (more or less depending on how long you've had fb). Or go through the saved documents on your computer. If I had my brother's external hard drive with me, I would be able to see essays I wrote in high school, sophomoric efforts (pun) that I then saw as literature at its zenith. I have sat down and for hours gone back through the things I had previously done.

Often times, this serves no greater purpose than to look back and chuckle at how far we have come, or perhaps serve a dish of longing for times past. But every once in a while, looking back means so much more. It is a chance to put yourself into the mindset that you held during the making of that event, and compare the differences between yourself then and yourself now. I think this is most easily accomplished through playlists you have made. Over the years, I have made many CDs for many people, usually without more motive than bringing to fruition the excitement of making a set of tracks that at first seem to be disparate but in fact hold a common theme or contain a flowing wave of emotion. As I mentioned about a year and a half ago on one of the first posts on this blog, each song holds a connotation to me (speaking of the ease of looking back on one's past, what better way than a blog where in one scroll I can read things that were on my mind a year before). Each song elicits an emotion or triggers a set of memories that are usually tied to some time and event in one's life. These can change over time, but some of these initial-impression connotations stay with you. For example, the pop-punk that manifested itself in my life throughout the summer after my sophomore year hold the connotation of heartbreak and the struggle to stay above water. As I grew older and these feeling left me, my music changed with me, leading to different connotations being attached to other songs. Over time, of course, some of the better punk songs from that time warranted a longer shelf life on the library of my itunes (see what I did there?), and as I listened to them with fresh ears, new feelings would leech themselves on, creating a new connotation for the song. Another example: one of the punk songs during that time was "Nobody's Listening" by Linkin Park was put on my workout playlist, and every time I exercise I hear that song. This has nearly stripped away its old connotation and replaced it with a new one. However, if I put on Meteora, the album where Nobody's Listening is contained, and give it a run-through, I'm positive I can go back to the feelings I had when I would lie on my bed all those years ago and turned the volume up to eleven to drown out the thoughts of sadness I had (don't worry, never thoughts of suicide, it was never that bad, and I have always loved life :) Notice the parentheses holds two uses in this context. Boom.

But, I digress. The point of all of that is that every once in a while I will be scrolling through my iPod and I will come to a CD I had made for someone years earlier, and I'll put it on. Within the first four or five seconds, all the memories and emotions having to do with the songs of the CD come flooding back into me. I am able to see the world the way I had when I compiled the playlist. The relationships I was forging, the bonds that were breaking, the angst (oh, the angst!), the trivialities of every day life. All of this occurs in anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes, until I wrench myself away from the past and back into the present. At its most extreme, I am left shaken, feeling as though I had been transported back in time. This eventually passes, and then I am back to my absentminded musings of now. But those few minutes afterward are just about the only time I truly feel nostalgia. Hell, the reason I started writing this article was because the message I had written two years ago triggered these happenings until I was left with an intense longing to go back and relive the things that have already happened to me. I don't know if I would change them, but just to live in oneself. Why is it that our best hiding places fade away over the years? (That was going to be a status update one of these days, you know. Consider yourselves lucky)

Why are we nostalgic? Why do we long for the past when we have so much life to live? I think it is a lot like reading a good book over again or listening to a song you know backwards and forwards. You already know the outcome, you know the ups and downs and you are there just to relive the ride. There is comfort in the past because it has already happened, and there is nothing to be afraid of. There are no twists in the past, because the twists have already occurred and cease to be surprises, only the next chapter in the story. This is what makes the future so fearsome. Anything could happen tomorrow, and there is nothing you can do about it. Things happen, often without your consent, and you are left gasping for breath. You can do nothing but approach it head on. But sometimes, it is just so much nicer to avoid this by looking back to what has already happened and reflect upon that. The road less traveled is less traveled for a reason.

I am currently listening to a CD Jason Huang made as Christmas present for his friends during senior year. The song "Let Go" by Frou Frou came on a few minutes ago, and with it all the connotations. The song is not strongly associated with Jason's CD, as I had heard it numerous times (and still do) on the "Garden State" CD. As that song played, and while I was writing the last paragraphs, the feelings and emotions came to me. First, images of the final scene of Garden State (spoiler alert), with Zach Braff holding Natalie Portman on the stairs while she cries, and then coming back later and everything works out. This stays with me for a few seconds before I move onto a more personal connection to the song. I saw myself driving my white Toyota Avalon XLS down Herriman Ave, windows open, and blasting the song for all to hear. The wind whips through my hair, and I consider this song to be the greatest composition ever conceived. Thoughts of going home to watch Scrubs, going to English to talk to Chris, Jason, and Mihir while Jason and Chris battle it out under the desk. Competing with Swupnil for the higher grammar and spelling test grades. Coming to math and spending the first 20 minutes listening to Mrs. Scola launch into a lengthy monologue about her adorable children and hilarious stories about her life. Going to lunch and wondering with whom I should sit with, and the implications of doing so. Courting girls. Putting off homework. Complaining about AP Bio. These are the feelings I get when listening to Let Go, and when I return back to the present, all I want to do is transport to junior year and be with my friends and just relive everything. The last thing I want to do is live in the present and know that with tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day, come things that cannot be known until they happen.

Is it bad to be afraid of the future? I think everyone, to some degree, does fear the unknown. And yet, most deal with it, by preparing as much as they can, and accepting the fact that what happens will happen.

What happens when we die? Do our souls live on, merely relieved of their bodies? Or do we just stop functioning, and everything is gone? How do we prepare for it? What can you do? I supposed the answer is everything you can before you go. We all know where the path ends up, but we don't know how it gets there. All we can do is enjoy the walk.

Even in one hour of writing, you can tell how much my perspective changes. From nostalgia to fear of the future to fears upon death to a resolve to live life to the fullest. I am sure that in the future I will return to this post and, in curiosity of my past life, read this. But what will I be like then?

Hello, future self. I am 18 year old Andrew (soon to be 19). I am lying in my bed in my dorm room at UC Berkeley at at 3:20 in the morning. I do not know what I want to do with my life. I'd like to think that one day I will have a lot of money, but when I look upon the work ethic I currently posses, I do not see myself doing this. I have not made a lot of friends here at Berkeley, probably because I am afraid that if I make new friends then the old friends I have made will not mean as much. I don't know whether Rubber Soul or Revolver is a better album. I like making puns. I enjoy being with people, but I like being by myself just as much. I am afraid that when I will die I will regret that I have wasted parts of my life. Will I ever get married and have a family? Will I be able to be with the same woman for the majority of my life and still be madly in love with her? Will my kids like me? Will I take them to the beach, and teach them how to play baseball, and be there at their recitals and games, and make sure they watch good TV shows and listen to go music, and make sure that they always try their hardest? Will I be optimistic? Will I leave a lasting impact in anyone's life? Will I make the world a better place? Will I believe in God? When I am on my deathbed, who will be around me? Who will attend my funeral, and what will they really think of me? Eventually, all of these questions will be answered, in that dark, unknowing future. And when that time comes, it will be past, and I'm sure I will look back on them fondly, wishing I could relive the moments that make life worth living. Future self, I hope you know what's important in life, because this might be our only chance to live it.