MEANINGLESS MAGAZINE is a comedy/philosophy website with writing on it.

Letter to people of the future.

Dear People of The Future,

Hello, how are you? Do you guys still speak English, or does your language look like wingdings? Does it look like this? XNKJNCXBVKSDJGHSDLKJGHODINNLKXMVL. In that event, maybe translate the rest of this letter using the technology you guys have.

My name is Larry Singleton, I’m from the past. Specifically, I was born in 1992, and I’m writing this in the year 2022. I wasn’t anything special like a scientist who cured bat AIDS or someone important with a Wikipedia page or something cool like that, so don’t get your hopes up here, sorry. This isn’t a historically relevant piece like the Gettysburg address, I’m just some random guy. In fact, I am so unspecial and average, I didn’t even have a girlfriend the whole time I was alive. I couldn’t even figure out how to do that lmao, I was an incel, I am not the expert on anything. I worked as a writer, a dollar store clerk, teacher, call centre employee, marketing brand ambassador, and a librarian. Not special, not the authority on anything, just some dude. However, here’s the thing (and partly why I’m writing this): if you are reading this, you’re from the future. That means your quality of life SHOULD logically be better than mine, but my life was way better than yours. Even though I was average, and you might be cooler than me, my life is STILL better than yours. Now, obviously I’m from the past and I have no real idea what your life is like, but I’m just going to assume it isn’t very good compared to mine.

That’s what I wanted to talk to you guys about today: what life used to be like. There are things you simply do not have access to and never will, because you were born in an unlucky period to be a human on earth. You see, for your generation/group of people sharing the earth at the same time, there is stuff you will probably never know about. Like for instance, did you know that regularly running hot water used to be a thing? Everyone considered middle class had that in their homes. In fact, the middle class was also another thing to exist that no longer exists for you. Just think: a whole section of the population that had so much regularly available running hot water we could all wash our asses with it (in that case, maybe I should more aptly say poopulation? LOL!). I know this sounds insane to you, but that is literally how it was: we used to have so much regularly fucking running water dudes used to use it to smoke weed with it out of a thing called a “bong.” You guys probably can’t do cool shit like that, you guys have to use your own piss lmao.

Another thing that most likely isn’t available to you is consistently running power. Can you imagine the luxury of that? After those aforementioned dudes would put tap water (yes, it came out of a tap! We lived like fucking KINGS!) into their smoking device, they would then sit their fat asses down in front of a thing called a “computer,” where they would watch moving pictures on a thing called, “Netflix.” Without interruption! Can you imagine that? You probably have no idea what watching a full movie uninterrupted is like because you and your contemporaries don’t have the resources for that. Instead, you guys have to deal with a thing called “rolling blackouts.” By the time you read this, all of the people from my group of folks have all died, and your government has most likely fully normalized the concept of a rolling blackout. But what I want to tell you is that shit is not normal at all to a guy like me. I’m not saying the way we ran our society was any better than the way you guys run yours, I’m just trying to give you an idea of how wasteful humans could actually be: we were a whole group of people that could afford to leave every single light on in our homes, forget to turn them off, and then still be pretty much fine when we remembered to turn them off. Your group doesn’t even have that fucking option: your government forces you to choose windows of time in which you can do certain things, and when you cannot do certain things. You guys even have fucking water laws now, that must fucking suck.

Once again, I have to tell you that I’m not saying all of this stuff to position my way of life as better. It was fucked up even when we were doing it, and I have no doubt it was wrong. But like I said: I was just some guy, I had no power to change any of that. Plus it was nice, I was the beneficiary of a lotta good shit. Like for instance, online shopping was a thing. It probably still is for you, now that I think of it. I doubt capitalism will allow stuff like that to change. Maybe you guys might only be allowed to buy stuff during times you’re allowed to use power and energy, but you can still do it. But back in my time….wow. Man, I’m telling you: it fucking ruled. You could order like 3 boxes of cat litter online, and within a couple hours some poor prick would have to break his stupid back delivering it to you LOL. You could literally order a fucking pizza, eat half, and throw the rest away. You could even order from multiple places at once! I’m not even exaggerating. One time I ordered from two different food apps on my phone, and the two dudes showed up at the same time and almost crashed into each other when they got here. It was a fucked up time, I’m telling you, ya had to be there, we could do so much that you can’t now. You could order hookers online. Or if you weren’t up to it you could pay like 3 bucks to some girl you liked and have access to a bunch of her naked photos for a month, and you could stay home and jack yourself off for however long you felt like! Life was amazing! Your group of folks doesn’t have access to shit like that, you guys probably have to line up for water, what an L, LMAO. You guys suck LOOOOOL🤣. JK. I feel a bit bad for you, ngl.

One of the biggest differences between our society and yours is that we used to be meat eaters. Now, some people might try and argue that this is actually a positive difference and we should’ve never eaten meat in the first fucking place, and blahblahblah. I’m not gonna argue that with words, the only argument I can give you is the taste of an actual burger, which you people of the future do not have access to. From what I’ve been reading in the now archaic 2020s, you people of the future are big plant eaters and fans of roots and seeds and shit like that. I’m not sure you know what a burger is, maybe some of the incredibly wealthy still have access to meat and have been photographed eating it: try to look it up online if the internet still exists. But all I can tell you is: imagine the greatest fucking plant-based piece of shit they are selling to you poor saps as real food. Now try to imagine something that tastes a million fucking times better than that. Now, just to put things into perspective for you, that’s just ONE burger. We had access to TONS of the fucking things whenever we wanted!! I mean, shit: just this week I ate like 3 burgers and didn’t think anything of it. THREE burgers to you would be unthinkable, but even ONE burger to a person in your society would be like me today somehow being able to fuck a girl that looks like Farrah Fawcett. Absolutely impossible, only occurring in my dreams.

Oh yeah, that reminds me. Did they tell you guys about fish, or did they cover that up? Fish used to be these lil creatures that lived and swam in bodies of water. I know it sounds insane, but they were real! They were also edible, and they were pretty fucking good and healthy for you. Unfortunately for you future fuckers, fish are extinct. They went extinct around 2050 or so, which means by the time you’re reading this that’s another thing that has unfortunately become normalized for your group. That sucks. Man, I’m telling you: I used to drive up the street to the pub near my home and I’d get something called, “halibut and chips” from these Scottish motherfuckers. It tasted fucking amazing, and I am sorry you will never get to try it. Are there plant-based versions of fish now for you guys? That doesn’t even sound good, I’ll pass, LOL. I used to get this thing called a filet o fish from McDonald’s. You know, it’s kinda funny: when I was alive and kicking, people used to have debates about whether or not the filet o fish from McDonald’s was good or not. People who didn’t like it would often make fun of people who did. The amusing thing about this now is, you future people don’t even have the option! That really sucks.

You might be thinking to yourself, “What was the point of any of this shit? To make us feel bad about a bunch of shit we no longer have access to? What a load of shit this all is, I hated reading it.” Relax, that wasn’t my point. Although I do think a little bit of mild bullying can be funny from time to time, I don’t wanna make you feel any worse than you already do. In my mind you people of the future are all dressed with loincloths covering your genitals, you’re all bald, it’s sandy everywhere, and you’re all thirsty (for actual water, not the slang meaning of sexual desire). I’m picturing Mad Max type folks walking around for some reason. The point of me writing this was to capture what life was like for humans of my era, even if it was just briefly. And also to remind you people of the future that nothing is real, and shit can disappear before you know it. There may be things you have in your current lives now that future generations will probably envy, and because of how bad your lives have gotten, you probably don’t even realize it. So I guess what I’m saying is try to enjoy what you’ve got, even if it isn’t a lot, because you never know what the future has in store for you. Lots of my contemporaries were kinda like that: I feel like a lot of people take how amazing life is for granted, simply because they’ve always known a life like the way they grew up. Anyway, this was a lot to take in, so I’ll probably end this one here and get back to trying to enjoying what I’ve got in 2022. Bye for now and good luck with your water wars!

Life Update / Book Sale!!

Rambling On: Life, Aging, Progress