Here's a message from a man from the future. His name is Happy Hermit.

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Hello. I’m the man from the future, year 2222 to be exact. I live in 7291 Street, Mahogany Park, Republic of Hemplandia. Hemplandia, you may say. Hahaha. Weird, right? I know that in your time, hemp was used irresponsibly and I read in a history book that I borrowed from our public library a tale of how hemp had a very negative connotation. I just laughed when I read hemp was used as a “gateway drug to lead to other drugs”. Now, we don’t even think of hemp as something that can cause harm. The key is responsible and moderate use. We use hemp to make our clothes - from hats to sandals. We even have a once a week event called Hempaholica to gather families from the community and do wholesome family activities while moderate amounts of ganja and homebrewed beer are distributed to the grown-ups. That’s a little bit something about the place where I live.

Just like what you have currently, we have also countries, whose names are based around plants. We have 25 countries in total, whose identities are based on the plants that were natively grown generations ago. Yes, generations ago, different crops grew in different places. In my time in the future, we sustain ourselves because each country has all it needs to sustain itself. What do i mean by that? In each country, we have the same basic necessities. All types of crops are equally distributed and there are no diseases that damage the crops. No health hazards or whatsoever and the only health hazard that we have is sunburn, because kids sometimes get that excited playing on the beach and stay long hours in there. There are no natural disasters like earthquake or typhoon because our ancestors provided the solution to that by using the technology that they had. They found out that earthquakes were caused by the tilt of the earth and typhoon was caused by some chemicals that were harming something from the air. I don’t know what its called. I happened to skim it in a history book that I read somewhere.

Compared to yours, we have a simple life back home. No crimes, no violence, no fear. Fights are non-existent. Domestic or even outside. We all take care of each other. We have no monetary system too because everything is basically free. If we need food, we just pick fruits from the streets. If you wonder if people overpick or get more for themselves, I’ll tell you you’re wrong because we do it in moderation. We only pick what is enough for us. We barter goods and crafts. Craftmanship is highly valued and each family has its signature craft. Shoemakers, musical instrument makers, pottery makers, weavers of fabrics which are made from plants and other similar crafts. We don’t use animals for clothing and we eat poultry, beef and pork during special occasions. Our diet for the week is like 99.9% from plants and 0.1% from livestocks. If you visualize that, it looks like this. We don’t just kill en masse livestocks, just like what fastfood companies do in this time, your time. Back in the future, children behave like adults too because they are well trained. They don’t have to be commanded when they reach the right age. They have the initiative to be responsible. Mass transportation is the only thing that we inherited from the past. Big trains that run on natural sources of energy accomodating families. We have subterranian paths too and it is lush with plants and herbs.

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I just had a forkful of processed spaghetti pasta without the sauce and it’s tasteless.

Anyway, the reason why I’m here is to tell you about compassion of the our ancestors who assisted, guided and gave chance to someone who has the threat to put them in the edge of extinction and to save and continue the cycle of life. I heard from my grandparents the tale of them, but it’s not detailed so I came here to learn and personally see how they reversed the potential damage. How did I get here? Even though we, in the future, sustain ourselves based on herbs and plants, we know how to travel in the past. Everybody can do it but no one does it because as I’ve said, we, in the future, are responsible and use powerful technologies such as time travel if we only need to learn history. I asked my father to travel here to personally see everything and he granted me the permission.

I went back here in January of 1981. 1981 was memorable because Microsoft was founded and MTV went on air for the first time and played “Video Killed The Radio Star”. This is somehow true since radio stars, during that time, are people and videos can be manipulated. So I tracked down this person who had plans to takeover the world. They referred to him as the Anti-Christ.

I have the ability to cloak, hide myself and I used this to not get noticed. I found him somewhere, in a country of pure pearls and I saw him grow up. He lived in a household where his parents always fought and the time when I saw him, he often mediate the fights. I tracked his habits and his favorites. When he was young, he loved going out and playing with other kids of his age. From the children of all walks of life, he played with. He loved the river and playing with water. I saw him how he and his friends played with wooden replica of guns, kites, paper planes, paper cars, wooden trucks, etc. He lived in a house made of old wood, rusty galvanized irons, windows covered with shells. His family’s house was surrounded with lush trees and they had garden in the backyard.

Over time, he was introduced to new toys. Match boxes, GI Joes action figures and other toys that were coming out and are made up of plastics, which were emerging during that time. He liked it because his friends and even his cousins have it. Even though his family was not making that much, he insisted to have what others had and not in content on what he has. Greedy and envious at a young age.

He started his primary education in a Catholic school named after the Patron Saint of the Old. Computer technology was just emerging in his country. I personally saw how he translated the letter A from graphing paper to computer representation. The computer had a dark screen and the characters were presented in green pixels. That was his first introduction to the what will soon be the next big thing in his generation- computer technology.

In their household, he loved playing the Nintendo Famicom or Nintendo ES during his past time. He even invited his friends to play with him, usually just beating them because he was very quick learning computer games. Even though he topped the classes and aced most of the exams, he had a very disorganized study habits. I remember his mother setting up an organized schedule for him to study and read books but he opted his time more to playing computer games.

Scholastic wise, he topped the graduating class with extra honors of “Best in General Information” and “Best in Religion”. Obviously, the opportunity was there to side with the light.

High school came. I noticed him change direction when the salutatorian in his elementary graduation class overtook him. Since then, he thought that he was cheated. He then took vengeange by disrespecting the value of tests. He let others look at his paper during tests and the superiority complex started to develop in him. He maintained the 2nd honors during his high school stay and his extra-curricular activities were only music - from Rondalla to the emerging rock band scene started by Nirvana - and computers, inclined to program non-beneficial software. He started to experiment with drugs and alcohol and went to influence his friends to drink with him. He wasn’t serious about his studies.

It was also the time he was oriented to radical ideologies. He went to his highschool library and tore book pages with topics which range from illicit drugs up to destructive ideologies such as communism and anarchism. Those influenced him to go to the university which was notoriously known for having communist radical students even though he was also offered to go to a religious university and picking up chemical engineering as his major. He maintained and even pushed forward his Epicurian lifestyle - skipping classes, more drinking, rushing his class projects. In here he met his first and only tangible girlfriend and joined his college fraternity. More sex and more drinking ensued.

In college, his interest with fame using radical methods started to realize via computers. He developed his first replicating program containing his full identification. During this time, computers were starting improve. The Windows operating were coming out and Java promised to unify all of the appliances and tech gadgets to interoperate. He just continued on playing with non beneficial programs and finding community that also does the same. And he found and even started his own.

He didn’t finish his college since he became so paranoid because of piled irresponsibility which ranged from drug use, overcraving for sex, not valuing the hard earned money and concern that his parents and relatives give him, finding it amazing how terrorists employ fear through destruction and even accusing his fraternity brothers of conspiring against him. He went to his rural hometown and confined himself, fearing of others to hurt him or to think differently of him. In there, he was alone and all he played with was a piece of emerging technology, the laptop computer.

With the laptop computer, it was his window to emerging digital world. But instead of doing something good, he chose to do destructive and create worthless programs just to get notoriety. And he got his piece of notoriety when he made a very hypocritical program. It so basic, yet the message of fear was there.

I observed, from there and looking back, he seems to be destined to notoriety.

His stay in his rural hometown didn’t last long because he grew more paranoid because of mistrust. He was then sent to the former colonizer of his country to avoid becoming paranoid and to restart his life, as a man that has plans to be the next big name in computer industry.

He went to a study in a school which has an apple with lots of flags as the logo. He then went to school as if he was the only one who studied in there. He just related to people inside the classroom and never caring to know them more. Outside the school, he just kept himself busy by doing activities on the computer connected to the internet. He just satisfied his cravings of pornography and personal gratification. And one day, he then realized that there is a possibility to improve the technology that he currently sees to replace everything that he sees outside his dark, messy bedroom.

And when he was about to graduate from his major, he suddenly experienced something that he never experienced before.

I read his mind and found out that he was starting to go paranoid again. But now there was no fear in him hearing differently. He started to look around and open his eyes and reflect what he has done. From the absurd to the obvious. From the past to present. He used colors, words, forms in the positive way to construct messages of distress from what is around him. He mashed-up and combined different images, different sounds, different colours to get the full picture of the current situation. With the help of the community that he feared of getting along with, he realized that it is very wrong and insensitive to have something that will make everything inside the community be translated to digital signals.

The community that he planned to take over was the one who helped him to change his plans.

And he cried and cried in the dark and opened the window and saw everything on his teary eyes.

So the plan halted and gradually, the community which he eventually became a part of, all came together and reverse the damage that was done by destructive changes. They only used technology to restore the old lifestyle by completely removing diseases, natural disasters, pestilence and studying what government form is better for all (which is obviously a government without hate) by employing the working theories during their time. They restored family values by injecting the values to mass media and the one president decided to amend the Constitution and unify the church and state to promote values effectively.

In other words, they didn’t start to restore everything radically. Little by little, did the trick.

Urbanization was gradually reversed. The whole of Manhattan gradually became as green as the old Central Park. The city is almost green as the rural areas.

The one who planned to use technology to take over the community, went back to the country side and eat oranges. Not in cans, of course. But homegrown and handpicked, from his backyard. Playing his antique acoustic guitar.

And with a little bit of connection, this is why “Superman was killed by Doomsday” was only in comic books. Superman is well and alive.

And that’s how the Supermen, our ancestors, saved us. So that’s how life was preserved and went on to infinity.

So thanks for inviting me to speak to you. I will stay here for a while and have a tour. I see in your tourist catalog guide that your public school system has a very interesting curriculum. I see here, chemistry, biology, environmental and earth sciences, entrepreneurship, language studies, culinary arts, veterinary science, values education and home making elective courses. Very warm. That’s very great. I wanna see how one of the campuses looks like. I want to also see one of your government hospitals. I heard that the staff treats everyone with smile on their faces. I want to see the largest waterfalls and check how do you currently use it to power the town. Also, I want to taste the food from one of your restaurants. I heard that the owner was a graduate of one of the culinary schools in town. Let me check the famous Coney Island and take a walk. I heard that the subway used to get there is so efficient and so clean. Full of advertisements, according to this catalog, i see. That’s all for now. My time speaking is up for now and thanks again for inviting me here. I’m eager to see tomorrow.

Peace and love, ya'll. (666f6fh@gmail.com)