I Wish

I continue to discover every day that my extremely vivid imagination may not be within the norm.  I don't know if anyone else has this problem, but I find myself frequently referring to some thing that happened earlier in the day or week, and having those around me give me these blank stares like I'm crazy.  Then, through careful (and somewhat panicked) contemplation, I discover that the memory I'm referring to is a completely imagined scenario I had been thinking about earlier.

I think, somehow, at some early stage of my life, I became trapped in the subjunctive.  And believe me, that's a confusing place to live.  I don't know if you know much about the subjunctive...but seeing as that's the universe I can't seem to escape, we shall go through a brief and not entirely inclusive rundown of this terribly confusing conception of speech pattern:

The "subjunctive" grammatical mood has seemed to pervade almost every modern language across the world, in some form.  The subjunctive form of speech is used when referring directly to something that is not necessarily real.  These are things such as wishes, emotions, possibilities, judgments, opinions, necessities, or actions that have not yet occurred.  It is best contrasted with the "indicative" mood (that which refers to that which is real).

If you're already bored with this lesson, you are not alone.  Let us explore all the silly ways we must reform our sentences when we're not talking about real things:

Present tense - Change from actually doing something to this ambiguous state of being.

Observation:  You are cool.

Suggestion:  I suggest that you be cool.

Observation:  She stays outside.

Necessity:  It is important that she stay outside.

Past tense - Change from having done something to this awkward present tense moment.

Observation:  He went to Llamapalooza.

Necessity:  It was imperative that he go to Llamapalooza.

Observation:  She was in your face!

Emotion:  She be all up in yo face!

...Okay, I lied about that last one.  I don't know what form of speech that is.

But let's talk a little bit about the future.  Particularly in wishing.

Imagine you're just walking along the road, and all of a sudden, you trip on a frighteningly large caterpillar.  To catch your fall, you grab a metal bar you find just above you.  You realize it is important that you hang on for dear life...because the bar is moving, and your feet no longer touch the ground.  Turns out, your falling over an insect saves your life by causing you to grab this bar just before falling off a tall cliff you had not noticed.  As you hang there for dear life, you see you are approaching the chimney of a massive mattress factory.  In hopes of a soft landing, you courageously let go and fall to what you hope is not your death.  Well, your aim is not so great, and you miss the factory, and crash down into the back area of a small Arabian restaurant.  In feebly trying to get up, your hand slips on an old and forgotten lamp.  Next thing you know, a buff and scary-looking genie wafts his way out of the spout.  You gaze in awe.

Appreciate for a moment that entirely subjunctive paragraph.  If I worded anything wrong, don't take the time to tell me.  I don't care.

It is in this (obviously likely) situation that I am not a fan of the subjunctive.  You see, future subjunctive clauses are written in an ambiguous past(ish) tense.  Observe:

Declaration:  I will walk, and it will be fun.

Possibility:  If I were to walk, it would be fun.

Wishing causes the most problems of all.  Suppose you are given three wishes from this genie.  You have always wanted to fly.  So you make the wish:

"I wish I could fly!"

But you have a clever genie.  A time traveling genie.  With a poof, he declares that he has granted your wish.  Thrilled, you jump into the air...and you break your arm, landing unexpectedly on the rubble you created from your initial fall.  When you ask him what's up, he explains to you that he made it so you had the ability to fly for about a 3-hour time period when you turned 13.  You get angry and scold him for not granting your wish.  He then explains to you that you wished that you could fly.  So he went back and made it so there was a time in your life when you could fly...though you can't fly now.  In a fury, you shout,

"I wish you were trapped in your lamp!"

He does nothing.  You glare at him with your broiling eyes.  Nothing.  He grins and tells you how silly that wish was, because it was already true.  He was trapped in his lamp.  That's nothing new.  Your wish has no need of granting.

You're going to need to find a way to beat this genie before you've wasted all your wishes.

This is why I petition that we eliminate the subjunction dysfunction.  I don't wish I could fly!  I want to fly NOW!  I wish I can fly!  I wish I am taller!  I wish we are better friends!  I wish we don't speak in the subjunctive!  I wish candy is free!  I wish you have a million dollars!

It sounds silly, but it sure clarifies a lot of otherwise possibly misconstrued intentions.

Are you with me?  I believe 80% of those who got a B or C in their Spanish class would have breezed through with an A, were the subjunctive realm eliminated from our lives.

You will feel so free when you take my advice and debunk the subjunctive from your functional life.  I declare that all wishes, emotions, possibilities, and dreams now lie in the indicative world!  They are real!  Experience pure liberation, and wish in the indicative present tense next time you desire something.

Have you ever thought that possibly the reason we don't have nearly as many of the experiences we desire is because we automatically assign all of our future possibilities to our unfulfilled past with the words we speak?  What is now?  Nothing!  The subjunctive has robbed us from living up to our potential NOW.  We must always wait.

But no longer.