Please note: this piece contains strong language
It’s really a relay race of pronouns.
But first comes that pre-pronoun, pre-noun, eternal present of the newborn. This suggests that the future is as much a concept as a reality. If you don’t know it’s there, does it exist? Sure, you want the hunger or dampness to stop, but can you measure how long you waited? And when you’re done, do you know that time has passed?
First person singular
With the slow delivery and upward gaze of someone digging deep into fond imaginings, or perhaps merely addressing tentatively the thing never before considered:
‘When I grow up, I want to be…’ …then a noun of the sort pictured (if you’re lucky) in one of the many books which (lucky again?) brighten your room. These images radiate a colourful, clean-living, blue-skied future. Their healthy glow, a taut cocktail of the static and the kinetic, out-romances the most optimistic Soviet poster. Data analysts rarely feature, nor tweedy academics, patches covering elbows which remain lifetime strangers to grease. Faustian sellers of futures? How could you depict that?
It’s early days for a digression but…
I realise that, ‘to be’ is a verb, pivotal to every Hamlet I’ve ever seen. But ‘to do’ is surely The Prince of Verbs. It’s all in the doing. And you really have to impress upon youngsters to imagine what you’d be doing; not what you imagine it would feel like to be; because then you’re just the person in that sunny picture; posing not doing.
Where was I? Oh yes, fireman; nurse; train driver; model; footballer. Sweatshop seamstress, trafficked fruit picker just don’t feature. But, why the early darkness? Again, I digress…
Do I wish it’d been framed differently? ’Would you rather be indoors or outdoors?’ I suppose it depends on the season you’re asked.
Or, ‘What language would you like to work in?’ That’s a daft question for an eight-year-old monoglot, no? But some feel more outgoing in Spanish; more analytical in German; more decisive in Russian. And it might turn out that your country is the worst at doing the thing where you might shine.
‘Have you ever thought that working at my hobby could drain it of joy, leaving one less place to turn for solace?’
Second Person Singular
Another’s vision of your future, somewhere on the spectrum from suggestion, through advice and encouragement, to command.
‘The dance world won’t know what’s hit it when you take the stage.’
‘You deserve better than him.’
‘You will go to prison for a period of fifteen years.’
‘You’ll meet some nice people in the home, Mum and be less lonely, now that Dad’s…’
Third Person Singular
Often a tense place to be.
Social Work’s pronouncements on your child’s immediate future, demanding that she…
The softly spoken vet’s ‘It would be cruel to let him suffer.’
Or, more positively, ‘She’s the stick-out candidate. She’ll be great.’
First person plural
That gradual gradient from ‘I’ to ‘We’ is surely the quintessence of growing up, and capable of bringing joy and pain in equal measure.
‘Why are we moving again, Mum?’
You fear the future of your family will never be settled. The journey from, ‘I want to be a fireman’ to ‘We have to go where the work is’ is just too crushing.
More optimistically, ‘We’ll hammer them’ as you confidently predict your team’s success in the final. You know you can’t do this alone and this prospective win depends on you feeling and acting like part of that larger organism. The elation of belonging to something bigger than yourself; you’ll search for that all your life.
‘Where shall we go?’ That first date question. You’d agree to anything.
If it all works out then: ‘Where shall we go on holiday?’ ‘Where shall we get married?’ ‘Where shall we live?’ And, hopefully never, ‘Can we decide on custody without lawyers?’
Second person plural
The teacher addressing rarely thrilled, often yawning teens. ‘Unless you work for your predicted grades, there’ll be no choosing.’ Even before austerity you’d seen fit to warn people away from doomed industries. You only did ‘Teacher Training’ when the mines closed. Talk about Modern Studies!
‘The house will be yours, for one of you to live in, or for you all to sell.’ ‘Aw - don’t talk like that, Dad.’
‘Promise me you’ll look out for your brother? He’s no got your brains and you know he’s easily led.’ ‘Aye, Dad.’
Third person plural
The biggest baton-handover we’ll all know; passing on the planet we borrowed from future generations. Of course, the conversation rarely takes place - but if it did:
‘The truth is, I’ll never know 99% of you, so let me sign off with a few apologies on behalf of us all.
Sorry we torched the planet and raised the seas high enough to drown you but not enough to dowse the flames.
Sorry you’ll be the first to live shorter lives than your parents, with less money and, in all probability, in their house until, having tried not to hear your every shag and blazing row, they slip away, leaving the house to you - if you’re lucky.
Sorry we busted the banks (again) surviving a virus which our globe-trotting encouraged. Sure, we’ve emptied the piggy-bank before, and we’ve always fought our way out of it, but usually not together, usually against each other at the cost of many years and millions dead or traumatised beyond repair. Trouble is, next time, it might be over in seconds.’
So, irony being my strongest remaining sense, let me ask you: ‘What will you be when you’re older?’
You answer:
Pure fuckin’ ragin’.