April 5th, 2034

An imagined journal entry, from ten years in the future.

I really, truly, cannot believe my luck sometimes. I've spent much of the last decade slowly developing my capacity for acceptance of the abundance I experience, but on days like today it feels like I'm once again a young boy just discovering the glory and marvel of a sunset over the ocean.

My life is comprised of a serenity and depth of joy that I know, with great certainty, a past version of Mike would be deeply moved by. Life has been so significantly altered over the last decade - so many unfathomable emergent shifts have brought forth the possibility for ways of being that I have truly only ever been able to feebly dream of throughout my existence.

I spend my days basking in the beauty of it all. My budding family thrives in a harmonious accord that frankly seems as if it ought to be impossible. We have the ability to revel in our joys and unify in our sorrows. The ways of this new world allow us to live close to the sacred dirt, a natural part of our environmental and community context - yet we can be with anyone, anywhere. Our great (and still growing) collection of books, maps, sketches, and paintings come alive at the mere thought of movement, and the boundaries of our imagination are irrevocably unfettered and infinitely multiplied.

I have the wondrous access to any and all forms of expression that I desire, and can instantly share and connect with my extended family all across the world. I write, I sing, I build, I play, I laugh and chat and run and plant. I inhabit the worlds in my mind in ways that were never possible before.

And above all of this, I feel a great peace. There is a palpable and vast knowing that I and my world are One. That life is a game intricately crafted by those of us who currently inhabit it. My love for this reality, this awe-inspiring existential opportunity, for pain and the beauty that it illuminates, bursts forth from every shifting and changing cell of my being.

Gratitude fills my lungs, and I sing.

Today, time feels much different than it did a decade ago - the way "forward" is less linear, less prescribed, less expected. But if I'm going to "look forward" to a time ten years from now, I simply look forward to this; to being and becoming, like the tides of the sea.

"If everything goes perfectly for you, how will things be in ten years? What will you be doing, what will you be feeling? What things will you have, what relationships will exist? What will you look forward to ten years from then?"

This line of questioning, posited in a great book by Sam Keen entitled, "to a dancing god," is simultaneously exhilarating and terrifying. Over the course of my life I've had similar questions posed - what's your five year plan? Career goals, financial goals, relationship goals? All of which, years down the line, proved almost completely irrelevant to me. Goals and plans (as much as I have attempted to play that game) have never really played out as I would have ever anticipated.

Because of this, along with my general discomfort with goal setting, I have leaned much more into developing a sense of who I am and what I desire NOW, and have placed much more trust in the ways of personal flow and dynamic adaptability.

With that said, I do feel compelled by Sam's questioning at the moment. I think he posed it in in a way that feels more associated with my values... he's not asking for cold hard outcomes, but rather predictions or hopes on how I might BE and FEEL, what my comings and goings might look like, who I spend my time with and the possessions I might treasure.

Now THAT is grounds for some good storytelling!