17776: What football will look like in the future

I wonder if there's a single place in the whole world that's never had a story. I bet not. I just about guarantee you there's no places like that in America. Every little square of it, every place you stomp your foot, that's where something happened. Something wild, maybe something nobody knows about, but something. You can fall out of the sky and right into some forgotten storybook. You run and run and run and you keep turning pages and none of them are empty. They're all full of stories. There's nowhere left to write. I think I'm just a bookmark.

People had a choice. They could continue wandering through the endless darkness, an absence of everything they loved, an endless void of disappointment and loneliness ... ... or they could look down, and embrace what they always had and loved.

A human being will rarely admit this to you, but they tend to be terrified of living forever. They were born and raised with the understanding that their lives would end. They've achieved everything they wanted to achieve, all the ills that plagued them. And now boredom is their only enemy. And they get up in the morning and fight it every day of their eternal lives. Recreation and play sustain them. Football sustains them. And if you find yourself in a football game that's such a gargantuan task, that seems undefeatable, that will claim eons of your time and your passion? I think that makes you one of the lucky ones.

People defeated scarcity. Everyone had what they needed, and nobody got sick, but they found that they needed things to be just a little bit difficult once in a while. They needed to stub their toe and wait in line and see that CHECK ENGINE light. They decided to leave their existence just a little short of perfect, because they wanted to want.

You ever wonder if this is Heaven now? You ever wonder if we're all just there now and we don't know it? I've thought about that. All of us have. There's a lot less people who go to church than there used to be, because that's what a lot of people think. But I don't think so. But I think about it. And I think, well, I can't be. Because I'm like you, I kinda look at the big long life ahead of me that stretches out forever and disappears. And I get scared. And I think, "this can't be Heaven if I'm getting scared, right?" And then I think, "maybe I am in Heaven, and Heaven is scary.

If they advanced too much further technologically, those advances would inevitably intrude on their humanity. People wanted to walk. They wanted to take the bus that smelled like cigarettes. They wanted those precious three minutes between asking a question and knowing the answer.

And I think, 'this can't be Heaven if I'm getting scared, right?' And then I think, 'maybe I am in Heaven, and Heaven is scary.

That terror wasn't natural. No other creature in the universe woke up every morning knowing it was guaranteed to die one day. Just us.

Now they are resting in a moment that will last until the end of time.

Who was it who said, uh, “even if life is forever, each moment of it is a miracle?” I think that’s just something we tell ourselves. We’re just ordinary and forever, I think.

They are creatures of play. They will be creatures of time until the end of time.

I think you underestimate how exhausting it is to think big. You can only hold grand ambitions above your shoulders for so long before you get tired.

my sister just does the same thing every single day. It's some kind of zen shit she's figured out or something. She's like, "it keeps me level, it's all I need." But I just can't do it, though. If I wake up without some big dragon to go and kill, I get like ... I get scared. Like I'm getting buried alive or something. Man. And the thing is, I do that while completely knowing that this game is dumb. I could wake up tomorrow and catch a ball worth 500 points. So okay, and? And then what? Maybe I get in the Hall of Fame and I get on TV. And then what after that? But it's like, on some level, I still have to grab on to that. I still have to have a mission, any mission. The harder, the better. And that's why I count myself lucky that it's turning out to be so hard. . . . So do you even want to catch the ball? I do and I don't ... clearly. I do and I don't. I mean, I don't want this to end. But also, if I'm not actually trying my best to get one, the entire house of cards I built for myself just kinda blows over, doesn't it? I gotta wake up every day, stake out some land, keep maintaining this ... I don't know, work of fiction

You know, I never went to New York. Never even visited. I don't know why I didn't. I remember watching Sesame Street when I was little, and I liked how people would just sit on their steps and talk to each other in front of these nice and neat and square buildings. And all they had to do was cross the street or go next door to talk to each other. Then I went to school, got a job, you know, you get busy. And it's ... Who was it who said, uh, "even if life is forever, each moment of it is a miracle?" I think that's just something we tell ourselves. We're just ordinary and forever, I think. There's a leveling out that happens if you live forever and ever without anything to lose. New York was probably just one more place with a lot of buildings. But I missed seeing it, that's a thing I lost. That's one of the only things I've ever lost. Thinking about that kind of gets me right in the heart. Like a little xylophone hammer is, you know, just hits it. ... It's a note we never play anymore.