A letter to my future self on what I am working toward.
Dear Future William:
You’ve spent a long time working to get where you are today. I’m writing you from August of 2025 to remind you that your work was worth it, that the library you built and the knowledge it contains was worth every bit of struggle. In the modern argot, the juice was worth the squeeze.
You see, when you walk into the room that you call your library, the room with the sign on the outside of the door that prominently states, “No Outside Electronic Devices Allowed,” you have staked a claim against the reductionist tendencies of the modern world. And amid the 2,500 books, 1,400 CDs, 1,000 DVDs and Blu-Rays, 250 VHS tapes, and 350 vinyl records your collection houses – a collection big enough that you actually felt the need to set up an actual library system – you will find traces of your intellect that stretch from hither to yon and stop at innumerable places in between.
- You’ll find Thomas Hardy, the author who warmly welcomed you back into the literary fold…
- …and Paul Simon, his velvety voice and peerless songwriting a light in the blackest of hours…
- …and Walter Rudin, a mathematical expositor who takes no prisoners…
- …and the nostalgic brilliance of your favorite childhood cartoons, preserved forever in their original glory.
The collection you have relentlessly curated in this room, across math, linguistics, literature, philosophy, history, and science is nothing short of miraculous. Your library contains entire universes, fields of study so deep that you could crawl into any one of them and dedicate the rest of your life to it. You aren’t so easily given over to specializing, as past-you knows all too well, but don’t let that dissuade you. When you find that perfect master’s degree, the one that lets you be and do everything you want to be and do, you will launch yourself into it with your same characteristic verve and grace, and if the letters ALD, DLA, or DLS someday follow your name, I will not be even slightly shocked. You will be a great person and you will do great things, and this library will be the cornerstone of that greatness. In this I have full faith.
What you have in this room, this haven of physical media, is something that no conglomerate, no government, and no website can take away from you: intellectual sovereignty. I beg you, future self: do not let physical media die. Do not surrender to the false prophets of streaming services, e-readers, and online service providers who sell you manacles but claim to be dealing in convenience. To channel the thoughts of Benjamin Franklin, the person who would sacrifice freedom for convenience deserves neither.
Now go read something. Read like your life depends on it, like your brain depends on it, like your health depends on it. With utmost affection, I am
Yours sincerely,
Past William
P.S. Watch Clerks all the way through at least one a year. You advocate for that film’s brilliance for a reason.