Even back then, perched in my tree, I was thinking about you, people of the future. I try to put myself in your shoes, imagine I know everything. Like other kids my age, I watch TV, and I believe I’m witnessing something big, the end of something precious: the earth as we know it, fresh air, clean running water, the birdsong slipping through my window. All this is going to disappear because we’re not recycling enough and we’re pillaging the Amazon rainforest. And because some crazy bastard set a giant mountain of tires on fire in Saint-Amable, Quebec.

Describing our own era is never easy. We focus on what seemed important at the time. We leave out the fabric of everyday life, which reveals much more than our philosophy. The example I give, in my imaginary conversations with entities from other places (other times, spaces, space-times), is that virtually everything we eat has at one point been wrapped in plastic. The seeds in their packaging. The plant roots in the tarp that keeps them moist and warm. The produce in its little transparent plastic bag, which is then placed in another larger plastic bag along with the rest of the food, and then under a layer of Cellophane if there are leftovers, or to be reheated, before finally ending its life in the little kitchen garbage bag, whence it is transferred to the larger plastic garbage bag. Meat’s no different. It comes on a Styrofoam tray wrapped in multiple layers of Cellophane; sometimes the cut is squared away between two thick layers of plastic melted together and sealed sous-vide.

Let’s not forget our bottles of juice, and water, and soft drinks. Some people have even had the nerve to put milk in plastic bottles, rendering it undrinkable. Families usually get their milk in three-packs of clear plastic bags, which are, of course, enclosed in a fourth coloured plastic bag printed with all the vital information the smaller plastic bags omit.

There’s more: our cookies and crackers, ice cream, pasta, and myriad other products that have all been processed in one way or another before making their way into our pantries, after being shrewdly arranged on the shelves in the aisles we walk down with our metal shopping carts because carrying our own food over any substantial distance has become an impossibility. We no longer have the willpower or the muscle power.