‘World of Tomorrow’ and the Weight of Today
Scarcely does 16 minutes of animation leave an impact on the viewer. Then again, scarcely is 16 minutes of animation as well crafted as Don Hertzfeldt’s ‘World of Tomorrow.’
Winner of 42 awards and nominated for a 2016 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film, ‘World of Tomorrow’ is funny, dark, thoughtful, insightful, and remarkably efficient.
World of Tomorrow
“World of Tomorrow” is an inventive, minimalistic, sci-fi short that presents a unique take on time travel. In this film, we meet Emily Prime, a 3–4 year old girl who is teleported to the future and taken on a tour of what her life will become. Her tour guide, a future version of herself, reveals a near unrecognizable depiction of Earth.
In the future, several humans are 2nd, 3rd, or even 4th generation clones. Emily politely listens to her future self’s musings, which are often sad revelations on the state of humanity, surprising results to age-old societal trends, and strange longings for connection, love, and intimacy.
This sounds rather bleak, because it is. For all its angst and dark comedy, “World of Tomorrow” is both expansive and near, tackling topics as voluminous as the physics of time-travel, and as relatable as loneliness. Both topics are presented to the viewer with equal brevity and efficiency.
The story reaches its apex when the ultimate reason for this tour of the future is revealed. The world is ending, and Future Emily is seeking comfort as she faces her imminent doom. Future Emily is granted her wish and uses futuristic technology to extract a calming memory.
In what is the most overtly pointed dialogue in the film, Future Emily says the following to Emily:
Do not lose time on daily trivialities. Do not dwell on petty detail. For all of these things melt away and drift apart within the obscure traffic of time. Live well and live broadly. You are alive and living now. Now is the envy of all of the dead.
Those are heavy words coming from a stick figure.
Emily Prime is transported back to the present, where our story began. She sings the line “What a happy day it is!” before prancing off screen.
The Weight of Today
“World of Tomorrow”, in 16 beautiful, efficient, and engrossing minutes succinctly points at the oft unstressed weight of now. We see Clone Emily transport Emily Prime to the future, which is unexpected, dark and unexplainable, and it is only when she is transported back to the present, her joy and understanding is restored.
It’s an interesting story arc to draw from. Emily Prime, who is not coherent enough to understand the complexities of what is to come, nor is able to reflect upon her past. She simply observes.
This film puts our inability to appreciate the moment under the knife. We frequently fail to appreciate the present until it is the distant past, and that distant past is graded only against the quality of our current situation. Similarly, future prospects can only be deemed exciting by grading them against the same current situation. The irony is that both the past and future, which garner much more focus than the present, can only be interpreted through the present.
I suppose this film really struck a cord with me, as I am someone who almost exclusively worries about tomorrow while bemoaning and criticizing the past. Much to my chagrin, most of my brain power is focused on things I cannot know and things I cannot change. Too few of my allotted minutes are focused on the one thing I can control, which is now.
It’s not altogether nonsensical. The present is a product of the past, and the future is a product of the present. Which means that your present moment has an undeniable importance as the persistent fulcrum of your life, be it good or bad.
We generally know what will happen in any given day. We wake up, we go to work, we come home, eat dinner, watch our shows, read our books, and sleep. Rinse and repeat.
At the peril of sounding too much like the broken record of “inspirational” Instagram accounts, I would be remiss if I didn’t emphasize the innate competency we have to alter what we expect our future to be. We fetishize “carpe diem” and pummel it into a small box that includes learning a new hobby, a spontaneous road trip, and eating some obscure dish at the local Thai place.
Though I adore the sentiment, I believe this power we have to alter our days is better focused in our efforts to observe where we are and appreciate it. Call a friend, meet a pal for coffee, or go for a walk. You’ll take the bigger action (flying across the country with no place to stay for a weekend) eventually.
Not only does each moment carry a specific and unique power, but also a specific weight. It is the weight that comes with the only thing you can truly control — now.
For now, breathe slowly and absorb where you are and respect it for the impactful instance it is — the rendezvous of what cannot be changed, and what cannot be known.
Epilogue: Revisiting This Post After A Weekend With Friends
I’ve spent the weeks since watching this movie attempting to curate specific ways in which I, or anyone else, can appreciate the exact moment I’m in. I started this post a long time ago with little direction. I knew there was a beautiful and worthwhile message to be extracted, but I had trouble putting it in words until this weekend.
My friends got married this weekend. This wedding served as a “friendship convention” of sorts for us. Among our number were those who had been married since we last talked, started new jobs, moved across the country, dropped out of school, started school, planned to move, developed new struggles, and shed bad habits.
After the wedding, we all went to a bar — about 35 of us in total. I had a very specific seat at a table where I could look across the bar and see a DaVinci’s ‘Last Supper’-esque view of all my friends talking to each other. Every one of them was talking to someone with a smile on their face. The weight of that moment fell hard, so I decided to sit there and take it all in — knowing I couldn’t change what happened before we got there, and content to not know what I would see next, because lord knows when it would happen again.
