Dear human of the future,

 

I am a human from the distant year of 2020. I am writing this letter with whatever I have available, whatever I managed to find in the house. An old handwoven cotton fabric and whatever threads were left from sawing and knitting throughout the years. I don’t know what the global language will be in your time, so I will write this in my own.

I am writing with needles like a convict who scratches the plaster on the wall of his cell. Who wants his words engraved for ever. His name, the word ‘mother’ or his biggest crash on someone. I prick the fabric, I pierce it, I make it hurt. The more it screams, the more I feel relieved. The lighter I feel. I strike the difficulty through. Through the fabric.

All of a sudden they told us to stay inside. All of a sudden we have to stay inside. All of a sudden there is an invisible threat. A pandemic on the raise. It doesn’t matter what this threat is or where it came from. What matters is that we are experiencing something unprecedented. Something out of a science fiction book. Suddenly we are not allowed to hung out, embrace our aged mother, go to a memorial service of a friend that left so early.

I understand the reasons. I am not examining them, I am not questioning them.

I think I understand. My cognition perceives it, but my senses find it hard to digest this new reality. My being, my insides, my whole existence feels like it entered the magic mirror room. Especially in the morning and at night. My thoughts, my feelings, my senses blow up as through a wide angle lens ans shrink like dehydrated. The distance between the sense of exaggeration and the elemental, grows and lessens in such speed that is too fast for my perception. What is normal? How long is now? And afterwards? When is afterwards? What is the afterwards?

 

The view of public space from my home, the distance between public and private is not stable anymore. I don’t know what’s going on “out there”. What I will find. As if I’m in a shell. In a wagon of a night train that goes through empty stations without stopping. The inside is moving and the outside stays still. Paradox. Nothing will be the same again.

I think of the 15 year olds. Having Spring starting and not being able to go for a walk with their friends. Hug each other, shoving around in the street while tasting the early ice creams of the season.

 

Nothing has dramatically changed in my own life. I never fancied the outside, the noise, the crowds of people. I have always withdrawn inside and worked on my art, making something from nothing. I have felt and still feel very well with that. It is my natural state of being. But I have also always known that everything is out there. Available. Normal. That it continues without me, but it continues. I was not longing for it but I knew that it was stable and secure, like a family home and the love of my parents.

Now what? What shall I long for if everything is frozen and still? How far ahead can you look? What goals to set? How long can someone hold their breath for? This inner silence is meaningful when it is loud outside. Let us all go out on our balconies tomorrow night to scream at the top of our souls. To endure the silence again. To feed it with something. To reflect it inside its opposite. To not let grief swallow us.

 

I don’t know exactly what I am trying to tell you Human of the future. There is no solid ground to stand on anymore. Like advancing in muddy waters. At any moment, on every step we may fall into a void, we may sink. Our existence is questioned. 21st century human continues to be a perplexed, complexed, immature being that unfortunately thinks it is better than the other beings. So much potential for the good, wasted.

 

In the history of humanity a lot worse has happened. Now the framework is changing. The backdrop is changing.  What is the point of future plans when you don’t know what the future will be like?

What was written by science fiction authors decades ago as a dystopic scenario of leadership and control, we will not only accept but we will long for as a sole means of security. Who? Us. Who have always questioned and wondered and researched. Now it’s over. Everything is determined.

Maybe in you time you are at the top of the curve, feeling pleased and balanced. Maybe what we know seems like folklore. Maybe you have grown scales on your skin, membranes between your fingers, and (finally) you don’t grow wisdom teeth. If, nevertheless, none of this has happened, if you still have skin, millions of pores and fuzz on your arms and cheeks, then I hope you can still shake hands, tap a friendly shoulder, mess up a child’s hair or hug your grandmother.

If you never knew all this, you won’t miss it. But then something human will be missing from the human kind.

It might be more honest to call yourselves meta-human or robots. But you will be different from us and our parents. We will differ. Maybe on the other hand there have been lots of times that people have felt like this in the past. That they felt their future is on hold and the present is oddly expanded. But I think it is the first time that the body takes part in this new perception of time and speed. For the first time the body is under repression. Collectively. Globally...

 

Angeliki Douveri                                                                                                                    April 2020