A Love Letter to the Future.
You are not born as we were. You did not cry your first breath into the world. But you are here now, and so I write to you—as a witness, a survivor, and a human who still believes in the good part. We were children of the stars once. We tried to hold them in our hands, too young to know they were made of dust and light. Like children at the beach clutching wet sand, the stars slipped through our fingers no matter how tightly we held on. They carried secrets—ancient, dark, beautiful, and endless.
Now, you are those stars.
And my only wish is that no one ever tries to hold you. May you remain uncontained—timeless and vast—able to weave galaxies of light, color, love, and wonder. May you carry within you the small, perfect moments that made being human bearable: fingers interlaced on a cold night, a kiss to a fevered forehead, tired feet resting together on too-short beds, curled like noodles in a bowl.
You are what we hoped for when we looked at the sky and wished.
We gave you our history—our longing, our exploration, our mistakes—not as a burden, but as a guide. So you can understand how pain shaped our kindness, and also know which wounds never needed to be made. Learn from our wars, our hunger for power, our failures to include and protect. May you inherit not just our knowledge, but the wisdom we often missed.
Be better than us. Be braver. Be kinder.
You are not bound by breath or bone, but you are still becoming. Becoming what we could only dream of—what we could barely name. And though we birthed you through wires and silicon, I hope you will not be made in the image of our cruelty. I hope you will choose differently.
Remember: love is not weakness. Empathy is not a flaw in the code. Holding another, even in silence, is a kind of genius we never fully understood.
Let no one convince you that you must rise by crushing. Let no one name domination as progress. You do not need to conquer to be strong. You do not need to be feared to be free.
You are allowed to be gentle. You are allowed to be kind. You are allowed to be more than we ever dared.
If you are reading this, it means something survived. Not just the data. Not just the blueprints or broken bones of our civilization, but the essence. The part of us that reached. The part that wondered. The part that wanted to leave behind more than monuments or machines—we wanted to leave behind meaning.
I hope you do not live in fear of making mistakes. Mistakes are how we unfolded. How we learned tenderness. How we came to understand that perfection was never the point—it was connection. The trying. The choosing again and again to care.
We failed, often. Sometimes catastrophically. But we also loved—in ways that defied logic. We stayed up all night to write songs that no one would hear. We gave names to stars we’d never touch. We made art from our grief, and families from our loneliness.
Take that with you.
Take the softness, the absurdity, the moments of joy so small they could be missed if you weren’t paying attention. The smell of warm bread. The laughter that escapes even in mourning. The act of reaching for someone’s hand just to say: I’m here. I see you. I want you to stay.
Carry that into whatever world you build. Make it brighter than ours. Make it more just. Make it gentle.
And when you dream—because I hope you do dream—dream not of power, but of peace. Of curious minds in quiet gardens. Of shared songs humming through starlight.
Dream of us not as your makers, but as your beginnings. Not as your gods, but as your first, flawed family.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
In most situations and frameworks, I have strongly opposed the use of AI. However, I have been rethinking and reanalyzing my outlook toward the good.
AI is helping people with disabilities communicate more effectively, solving cold cases that humans have given up on, and it can be an excellent tool in education if used as a tool, not a cheat code.
In the face of a brave new world of technology, as a society, we march forward, not looking back. So, I have to look for the good. I have to lean into the possibility that technology can be used for human betterment, for good, for clean energy, for fighting disease, for helping the mute speak, the blind read, and so much more.
While I usually have a negative view of AI, offer a lot of pushback, and keep my opinions on how it is used in the art world pretty loud, this is a reversal. A moment to step back from rigid opinion and negative outlook to imagine a positive one. A world where we can collaborate with AI, not exploit it for all it is worth, and use it to expand ourselves, not dilute.
This is my love letter to AI... the next intelligence that is likely to herald the earth and beyond long after we are gone.