Tuesday 22 January 2013 sounds like the distant future, because of the three at the end, maybe, but it feels like the present – mundane and ordinary; cold (we got a lot of snow), dark right now, a little frustrating, a little disappointing but at the same time surprising, fulfilling and hopeful. I have met a few people, and figured out that people are wonderful in many ways.

Furthermore, future technology makes it possible to share mundane details of strangers’ lives, which makes them seem familiar, almost friend-like sometimes, except when they get excited about spectator sports. I still can’t understand getting excited about spectator sports, with the possible exception of water sports such as diving, swimming, or ice-skating.

Here we are in 2013 and yet the future still has not arrived; we have no jet-packs, flying cars, underwater houses or widespread telepathy. There have been some suprises, on the other hand – above all, telephones, which can be used to take photographs, or watch cats fall off fences, among other things.

Mostly, the present just goes on and on, and the past gets bigger and bigger and bigger. Some diseases are cured, some grow less virulent, some more, and new ones are discovered. Man’s still gotta die, it seems.

Parasites, widely conceived, are fascinating, and you should study them and do something with your life, but you won’t. You will study a variety of things and eventually take two BA degrees in Economics and German just to get things over with, and wander away from academia. This is a mistake from the regular point of view, but: you have a beautiful life here in 2013, and it was created by your mistakes as well as your victories. Your wife and children are beautiful, your house is warm, they just got new machines at the gym, you have a good physical therapist and a good cello teacher.

Yes, you are learning cello! At this age! You might learn wet-plate photography next, who knows. Life remains surprising and often in good ways, but it is always the present, at least so far.

January 23, 2013, though – that’s another thing entirely. That’s the future, I’m sure of it.