The Atmosphere for Miracles
by Cassie Schifman '18
Dec. 2015
So at two in the morning last week I discovered a random quirk of the calendar app on the iPhone which allows you to scroll through as many years as you have the patience for. In a matter of seconds, you can go through all of the dates that will ever be important in your life - birthdays and graduations and weddings and snowstorms and rainbows and a thousand other moments right up until the day that is unremarkable to the world excepting for the fact that you will no longer be a part of it. There's a metaphor there, and an obvious one at that, for the brevity of time and the lack of impact of a single human life and the coming oblivion waiting just seconds of scrolling away. But to dwell on it would be missing the point, and so I digress.
At two in the morning, I had enough patience to get as far as the year 3015. And, because two in the morning thoughts are always weird, I got to thinking about and time and space and poetry and mortality and lit mag (like you do...) and somehow I arrived at this thought:
In the year 3015, assuming that there are still some human beings wandering around on earth and we haven't all been killed by the alien overlords we all secretly suspect exist, Christmas is most likely going to happen. Someone named Cassie in 3015 will probably be finding an excuse to make cookies and spend money on things that are only significant because of the thought behind them. And if it's not Christmas specifically, it'll be something else. Somehow the human race has always found some way to find the light and celebrate it in some way despite how seemingly untouchable the darkness is. We might all be ruled by robots in a millennium, but we'll still find an excuse to dress up and sing like idiots.
This week in my history class, my teacher kept telling us to make connections, and I'm trying since I'm pretty sure that, sitting here with my view from the cheap seats, that's the entire point of being alive. Because 3015 Cassie and I are separated by 1000 years of history and heartbreak and advancement and yet we are connected in an improbable and incredible way. Maybe that's the point of Christmas or maybe it isn't, but in this season of peace and joy I think that's about as glowing and naive a hope as I can find. Standing here in 2015, I have no reason not to believe that the future - not necessarily my future but The Future - will be safe and bright and familiar. I am not lost in the oblivion - I am part of it.
In the year 3015, Christmas is going to be on a Sunday. And if that isn't a miracle in and of itself, I don't know what is.
So at two in the morning last week I discovered a random quirk of the calendar app on the iPhone which allows you to scroll through as many years as you have the patience for. In a matter of seconds, you can go through all of the dates that will ever be important in your life - birthdays and graduations and weddings and snowstorms and rainbows and a thousand other moments right up until the day that is unremarkable to the world excepting for the fact that you will no longer be a part of it. There's a metaphor there, and an obvious one at that, for the brevity of time and the lack of impact of a single human life and the coming oblivion waiting just seconds of scrolling away. But to dwell on it would be missing the point, and so I digress.
At two in the morning, I had enough patience to get as far as the year 3015. And, because two in the morning thoughts are always weird, I got to thinking about and time and space and poetry and mortality and lit mag (like you do...) and somehow I arrived at this thought:
In the year 3015, assuming that there are still some human beings wandering around on earth and we haven't all been killed by the alien overlords we all secretly suspect exist, Christmas is most likely going to happen. Someone named Cassie in 3015 will probably be finding an excuse to make cookies and spend money on things that are only significant because of the thought behind them. And if it's not Christmas specifically, it'll be something else. Somehow the human race has always found some way to find the light and celebrate it in some way despite how seemingly untouchable the darkness is. We might all be ruled by robots in a millennium, but we'll still find an excuse to dress up and sing like idiots.
This week in my history class, my teacher kept telling us to make connections, and I'm trying since I'm pretty sure that, sitting here with my view from the cheap seats, that's the entire point of being alive. Because 3015 Cassie and I are separated by 1000 years of history and heartbreak and advancement and yet we are connected in an improbable and incredible way. Maybe that's the point of Christmas or maybe it isn't, but in this season of peace and joy I think that's about as glowing and naive a hope as I can find. Standing here in 2015, I have no reason not to believe that the future - not necessarily my future but The Future - will be safe and bright and familiar. I am not lost in the oblivion - I am part of it.
In the year 3015, Christmas is going to be on a Sunday. And if that isn't a miracle in and of itself, I don't know what is.
