L'Illusion de Fin

Lyrics

Subject is seated. Questionnaire form P-113.
Standard lighting. Controlled environment.
The procedure is simple.
We ask them to report on the continuity of the self.
They always find it… illuminating.

Part one. Recall the self from a decade prior.
The subject smiles. A small, condescending laugh.
Oh, that person.
The music they liked, the books they read.
The terrible haircut in the photo from May 2014.
Friends who are now just names in a phone.
Beliefs held so tightly, now shed like a skin.
Change, they write. So much change.
A complete stranger, really.
They fill the boxes with energetic checkmarks.
The past is a foreign country. They are a proud expatriate.

And now, the illusion takes hold.
The beautiful, necessary fiction.
They draw a line under today's date.
Firm. Confident.
This is it. The arrival. The final draft.
The person they are now is the person they will be.
This is the end of history.
Their own, private, settled history.

Part two. Predict the self a decade from now.
The pencil barely moves.
The boxes for change are left empty.
My favorite band? They will still be my favorite band.
My values? They are bedrock. They are axioms.
My closest friends? Of course, they will still be here.
The subject looks up, a little bored.
Is that all?
The future is just… more of this. A steady, predictable coastline.
No more earthquakes. No more tectonic shifts.

And here, the illusion is complete.
The beautiful, necessary fiction.
They draw a line under today's date.
Firm. Confident.
This is it. The arrival. The final draft.
The person they are now is the person they will be.
This is the end of history.
Their own, private, settled history.

At Harvard, Daniel Gilbert knew this.
Published it in Science, August 2013.
He asked about concert tickets.
Would you pay more to see your favorite band from ten years ago,
or your current favorite band ten years from now?
The answer is always the same.
We trust the past. We distrust the future's capacity to please us.
We are temporal provincials.
The human being is a work in progress that mistakenly thinks it is finished.

The subject signs the form. P-113.
Slides it across the table.
Stands up, a complete and finished thing.
For today.
The illusion holds until the next decade proves it wrong.
It always does.