Rearview: Here for It ,#353

Hi! It's R. Eric Thomas. From the internet?
Hi!

Every year on New Year's Eve, my past self from one year prior comes at me with a knife.

I use a program to send e-mails into the future (scientist!) and every year I answer a list of questions about what happened during the past year and how I felt about it and set it to be delivered on New Year's Eve. And every New Year's Eve I completely forget, even though this is one of my core traditions, for like a decade now.

Some dude who vaguely looks like me but with better skin and either more or less weight depending on the year shows up in my inbox just as I'm getting ready to go out for the night and is like "this is what you were sad about last year!"

This year, I'm going to be waiting for Past Eric with the SWAT Team and an arrest warrant.

Here comes Johnny Yesterday all like "So, did you finish your novel???" Boy, if you don't get the hell out of here before I turn the hose on you!

Why do I do any of this?? I don't know. But I refuse to stop. And that's my philosophy of life.

One thing that makes you think about your philosophy of life [graceful pivot] is the board game the Game of Life, which I played on Christmas evening with my niece.

When she asked me to play with her, I was very excited because I used to play the Game of Life as a child and I know the rules so I'd seem cool and with it, instead of seeming completely lost every six or seven minutes (6,7!).

She beat me both times, which makes me proud and confused. AM I DOING LIFE WRONG?

Before the second game, her brother--who had declined to play with us but was nearby--advised her that the key to winning was to go to college because although you have to pay a $100,000 loan, the salaries are higher afterward. Inside I was like, "I have a lot of evidence that shows that this is propaganda," but outwardly I just nodded.

Of course it did prompt me to go on a quixotic tangent about gap years and their father's time in Americore. I do feel like I'm a good storyteller, but something about talking to all of the youngest members of my family completely undercuts that and I become a rambling person talking about CD players and Milli Vanilli.

Do you remember how in the Game of Life, you're given a minivan and you choose a pink or a blue peg to represent yourself and an opposite colored peg to represent your spouse? Also, as you go along, there's green pegs to represent pets (although I am very old and I don't remember there being pets involved. You couldn't afford a pet in the 80s. We were in a Cold War! Franklin Roosevelt said "NO MA'AM!")

When I was a little kid and playing the Game of Life, I would have a little voice in my head that was like "what if you put a blue peg in your car with you??" And then I'd douse my entire brain in holy water and put a pink peg in and I'd announce to my family, "that's my lady wife, Julia Roberts."

The idea of two blue pegs in my Game of Life car was the most dangerous thing in the world. This was my Heated Rivalry. 

A lot has change and not just my lavender marriage to Julia Roberts. Inflation has hit the Game of Life; did you know about this? We’re now ending up with millions at the end of the game.

On one hand I get it, but on the other hand I’m like "Wait, is 1.6 million enough to retire on? I need to call my financial advisor. I'm having an existential crisis on behalf of this blue peg."

Also, this is a small complaint, but when you're the adult playing with an 8-year-old and the final tally goes up to the millions, suddenly everyone is looking at you to do big math. I'm not a forensic accountant! You get one BFA and suddenly you're Elon Musk-level rich?? Is this necessary?

I was surprised that my niece wanted to play a second time. But why wouldn't she? She’s a millionaire retired dancer with multiple pets. Life is amazing. Meanwhile I’m actually living the game of life where my past self shows up in my inbox with veiled threats and I play a board game thinking “how energy efficient is this peg mini-van?"

But sometimes it's nice to just play a game. The second time I even resisted telling aimless stories about gap years, I didn't mention the game's egregious lack of 401k representation, and only one time did I say, "You know I’m leaving you all my artwork, right? It’s a gift and a burden, as is always the case when you have a blue peg uncle who travels through life with another blue peg."

I'm doing a new show in Philadelphia at the end of January and I'm giving the audience slips to fill out--if they want--with one question on them. I'll then randomly pick slips, read them, and riff on them. It's what I've been doing at The Moth between stories for the past 11 years and so the concept of this show is "Oops, all slips!"

I thought it might be fun to solicit answers from the greater newsletter readership, as well.

It's completely anonymous but I may read it aloud for an audience of roughly 80, so feel free to protect the innocent. You don't have to fill out all three, unless you want to. You don't have to do anything! It's a free country!

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Franklin Roosevelt said "NO MA'AM!",
Eric