As soon as I got out of bed, Ynkö led me through one of the many corridors surrounding the Hall of Singularity, leading us to a modest anteroom. The room had a wooden table with a glass top and two padded chairs, besides another door that looked like an exit.

As soon as we entered, I noticed a shiny object in the center of the table. At first glance it resembled a smartphone, but unlike the ones I already knew, this one had its finish in a beautiful black marble.

“This is a tokenpad. We believe this is the best way for someone from your Age to start,” said Ynkö.

When I picked up the device, I felt a mixture of admiration and perplexity. What I thought was marble actually turned out to be like a very light textured carbon fiber, extremely robust. The screen in turn appeared to be glass, but responded to the touch with a soft and somewhat moist feel, and even with the passing of the fingers it remained always clean and crystalline.

When I asked myself where the turn button would be, the tokenpad anticipated and woke up on its own, emitting a discreet graphite light that filled the entire screen. On the illuminated background emerged a minimalist interface, in which the available apps presented themselves one by one, in short introductory animations.

I immediately recognized some traditional tools of my Age, such as GPS, messaging, voice communication, calendar, and also the personal diary in which I began to record these experiences.

The last application to be presented was “Tutorials". Curious, I opened the application and found that it presented only one option, called "Tutorials of the Applicant of the First Age - #1 - Keep Calm and Open Your Mind".

I was about to start spying on the tutorial when Ynkö interrupted me, asking me to open an app called "Wallet". I thought it was strange, but when I answered the request of my newest friend, I had the grateful surprise to see that my wallet was not empty!

The app featured several different acronyms, each accompanied by a number indicating its respective amount. The list was so large that I had to scroll a few times until I found the ending.

“What is all this? Money?” I had to ask.

“Not exactly, Namascoin. These are tokens, they are part of everything and are everywhere. I know there are a lot, but initially I want to show you just a few that, not by chance, are very similar to what you think about money. Filter your list by ‘utility token’.”

I looked back at the tokenpad screen and found the classic magnifying glass button. I pressed the button waiting for a keyboard to appear, but instead, the button just glowed under the outline of my finger.

“And now, are you going to tell me that I just need to speak?” I asked excited.

“Better than that... you just need to think.”

I was wondering if it was a joke, but as it was worth trying, I kept the button pressed and thought of the words "utility token". The result was instantaneous and astonishing, with the apparatus highlighting a small set of acronyms.

“How is that possible, Ynkö?” I babbled.

“It is not so simple, but for now let’s consider that the tokenpad understands what you feel and think.”

I looked suspicious at the device that was in my hands, where only three tokens appeared now: BED, FOOD and SELF.

According to Ynkö, this was the basic wallet for any Applicant. The tokens were used to cover accommodation costs (BED), food (FOOD) and personal expenses (SELF). In fact, they looked a lot like money, but each one could only be used for purchases of its own category.

Next to each of these tokens, however, there was an observation that made me curious:

“Ynkö, what does this mean: ‘renewable’?”

“That’s exactly what it says it is, Namascoin. The amount of BED and FOOD tokens is renewed every day, and SELF tokens every week. This way, during your stay with us, you will always have something to eat, somewhere to sleep, and something to do.”

‘Renewable money’ was a strange concept: waking up with the same amount in the wallet, every day, but not being able to accumulate it from one day to the next… or every week, or month or so. The more I thought about it, the more I came to a conclusion.

“Is it just me, or does it look a lot like —”

“Like a basic income program!” Ynkö exclaimed, interrupting me.

Yeah, that’s exactly what I thought. I just didn’t understand why money was provided — in fact, tokens — in a renewable way like that. It seemed to me that the system would cause a lot of waste.

“What happens to tokens that are not spent before their renewal?” I asked.

“It’s simple. They expire, which means they will be drawn from your wallet and transferred to social funds.”

It was very strange; I had second thoughts about that "money" being mine after all. Right away, I came to think of a criticism that I made a point of sharing:

“But Ynkö, this seems to me an encouragement of consumerism! Think with me... since you can’t accumulate tokens overnight or over the week, you’d better spend everything, all the time, to avoid losing anything.”

My young friend found the reasoning very curious:

“‘To spend everything, all the time, to avoid losing anything’... wow, that is so First Age!”

I had spoken without thinking, but I confess that when I heard the phrase back it sounded really odd.

“Remember that expired tokens are not destroyed, but transferred to social funds. Half of them go back to the ‘Keep Cool’ program, which maintains our universal basic income, and half go back to the ‘Got Your Back’ program, a response fund for major disasters,” — Ynkö elaborated.

"Got Your Back " was in fact called "Universa Veraque", a fund naturally fed by the excess of wealth available in times of prosperity, and that served the purpose of ensuring enough resources to mitigate the effects of disasters and calamities, in difficult times.

Also, the "Keep Cool" program was actually the nickname for the "Fide Liberta Veri" fund, which, unlike what I imagined for a basic income system, offered different income plans where each individual could choose — that’s right, choose — a preferred one, depending on your age and the lifestyle you wish to adopt.

By then the explanation was incredible, but it was not yet finished.

“It turns out that when citizens engage in paid activities, whose income is cumulative, they still continue to receive the basic income of their choice. In those cases, it is common that they let their renewable tokens expire whenever possible, thus collaborating with the strengthening of society,” Ynkö explained.

He then paused for a while, before concluding: "What you see as individual loss; we see as collective enrichment."

This was a stark contrast to the reality I was used to. I thought to myself that, although I could consider myself "free", the truth is that I’ve always felt continually forced to work and to live in agony. I ended up thinking about all the inequality of my time, and it occurred to me that several of the "great minds" of the First Age would see Ynkö’s explanation with a very different bias.

“Ynkö, I don’t know how things are around here, but some people in my Age would say that you are communists, and that it’s not a good thing.”

“Communists? Have you ever seen a communist system where people can choose to live the way they prefer, and still earn a basic income specially designed for that?” he answered.

It was hard to question the young counselor’s line of reasoning. Given my obvious limitations in that area, the next question was even more predictable:

“So, you are capitalists?”

Ynkö sketched visible disgust. Theatrically, he brought his left hand to the top of the forehead, in an exaggerated facepalm.

“What you understand as your ‘capitalism’ we now study as ‘Cumulative Competitive Capitalosis’, a gloomy term that can be attributed to both the serious collective mental illness that plagues your time and the obsolete economic system derived from it.

“Wow... but then what are you?” I asked.

“We are what we are, each in oneself, and all in the whole. You will eventually understand this, one day, but in order not to remain unanswered until then, here is a didactic simplification: we are humanists and decentralists; the first because it is right, and the second because it is the most efficient way to achieve the first.”

That was one of the few times I felt some sense of familiarity.

“Ah, yes... I know what ‘humanism’ is!” I exclaimed, happily.

The feeling, however, did not last long. It was enough to look at Ynkö’s expression and listen to his answer.

“That is the problem with oversimplification. What we are calling ‘humanism’ here is not just a set of principles that can be obtained through a book, but rather the very comprehension of what makes us ‘human’, considering all possible and different dimensions.

“Perhaps I don't know what it is, after all…” I thought out loud.

Ynkö then took a short dramatic pause, and proceeded with a solemn performance:

“As my friend Hiann would say: ‘It is the vision that guides our steps towards the unknown, but that doesn’t cease to evolve with us once we get there.’"

I could feel a lot of security and authority in Ynkö, which was surprising for someone so young. As he kept speaking, the startling abyss between the humanity I knew and the one I was beginning to know just continued to grow.

It was only then that an extremely curious question occurred to me:

“Say Ynkö, how much exactly did I travel into the future?”

-- TO BE CONTINUED

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When I realized I had no idea where I was, I felt a burning instinct emerge, but the fact is, I never got to react. The natural impulse of the fright was interrupted by an opportune touch on the shoulder, followed by a calm and jovial voice:

“Welcome to Σthos, son of the First Age. My name is Ynkö, and everything is fine.”

Just one touch, a single touch, and what was once fear now gave way to an implacable serenity. Calmer, and also curious, I sat down to assess what was going on.

Obviously, I firstly focused on Ynkö - a cheerful lad around the age of fifteen. Seated in an armchair beside me, he presented an energetic and slender appearance; his look, though happy and quiet, was mysteriously mature for his age.

Soon after, I noticed that there were other beds besides mine, all of them forming a large circle in the center of a wide wooden hall. The environment, despite being built with rustic materials, was spacious, beautiful and rigorously well planned. The great columns of the hall stood out, covered by rich ornaments which, hand-carved, evoked the virtues of skill and patience.

Looking up, I was surprised by an incredibly high ceiling, structured in rather complex geometric patterns. As soon as I tried to consider the how or why of it, however, I was struck by a buzzing in the ear and an intense vertigo. A little dizzy, I rubbed my face until I recovered and I found it safest to limit my observations to whatever was closest to the ground.

There were eleven beds in total, where other people seemed to be waking up, just like me. Next to each bed it was possible to observe a personal caregiver, although not all were young as Ynkö; some of them even seemed to be meeting good friends among those who were awakening, a scene that filled the hall with a pleasant atmosphere of fraternization.

“Where am I, or... where are we?” It was the best I managed to ask.

Ynkö opened a big smile and replied:

“You are in Σthos. We took you out of your own spacetime to invite you to join our dimensional exchange program!”

I know that those words should have scared me, or at least provoked some kind of fear, but it didn’t. In fact, Ynkö was so kind and the atmosphere was so welcoming that I was feeling curious above anything else.

"Could it be that I died?" I thought to myself.

It was a good idea, but then we would have a case of emigration, not exchange.

"What if I woke up from a dream, into another dream?" was the second idea.

That hypothesis had more potential, but it didn’t fit either. As strange as those events were, I felt they were real; on top of that, and quite unfortunately, my classic back pain was already there.

Ynkö seemed to enjoy himself at the expense of my confusion. He waited as long as he could, until he could no longer contain himself, and burst out laughing:

“Come on, are you really trying to figure all this out by yourself?”

His voice was playful and affectionate, but the provocation fit like a glove.

“Wow, I don’t know what I was thinking. I have a question, please. Is this an abduction? Or... I don’t know, are we in the astral plane?”

The answer came right after:

“Well... actually those were two questions, but none of them will help you very much. Anyway, the first answer is yes, but not in the way you imagine; And the second answer is no, but “no” in a way that you can’t imagine.”

It seemed that Ynkö liked mind games. I asked him to repeat the phrase a few times, but eventually gave up. After realizing that I was unable to follow him, the young man offered to help:

“If I would guess, I think that what you really want to know is if your normal life is waiting for you just like you left it.”

I admit I was impressed. I didn’t even know that that’s exactly what I wanted to know. Certain of what he had said, and expecting no confirmation from me, Ynkö continued:

“Relax, your return to ‘normality’ is guaranteed, but now we must go through the basics.”

He then clarified that, despite the jokes, the exchange program was real. I, an inhabitant of the "First Age", had just been transported to the "Fifth Age"; more precisely to the Singularity Hall: the space-time portal of the city of Σthos.

“Although we have all the time in the world, there are some things that cannot wait. Being so, listen carefully: two questions you’ve wasted, then two more you can ask; afterwards you’ll have to decide. If you agree to participate in our program, your only obligation will be to complete it. In the end, you will be returned to your own space-time, exactly where you were before. If you decline, you will return now, just as you arrived, but without any recollection of what happened,” the youngling explained.

It turned out that Ynkö really liked playing games! What he did not know, however, was that he had bumped into a candidate who not only shared his taste, but also was already fully awake. Additionally, I had already understood the most important rule of the game: "lousy questions lead to useless answers".

After thinking for a moment on which strategy to adopt, I decided that my first question was going to be a full-frontal assault.

“What is the reason for this exchange program?”

Ynkö smiled, making it clear that he was one step ahead of me.

“This program serves so that human beings from different eras can share experiences with each other, learning and growing together.”

What a failure, the answer was so obvious! Kind of nervous, I even tried to correct it:

“No, no... I meant what does this have to do with me… why was “I” chosen?”

“Is that your second question?” Ynkö reminded me.

I became silent, quietly shaking my head in disapproval. My plan had gone down the drain. There was only one more chance, and I needed to think better; I needed to find the main question, the one which would help me decide.

I confess that it took me a long time, but I finally realized that deep down I had already made a decision, and in fact I did not need any answers. The last question, in this case, was just an elegant piece of the game: it did not need to be spoken, nor did it need to be answered, it just needed to be sought.

I felt a great inner clarity, and grateful for the game, I decided to end it on par with the young man who led it:

“Okay, how do I check in?”

Ynkö stopped for a second, unable to hide his surprised reaction. Swift, however, he soon shook his head and pulled himself together, proceeding enthusiastically:

“Well… I liked you! The check-in is very simple: just tell me your name. I’ll then register it at the Abacus, and that’s it, your exchange will officially commence!”

Excited by the moment, and with no idea of what an abacus would do in this case, I said with will:

“My name is Nahmas Connor!”

It was not what I expected, but upon hearing the reply Ynkö reacted with disgust; he began to grumble at himself, saying the name was not “good enough" because it was “as exciting as a glass of warm water". I was about to remind him that I could hear everything when the young man stopped, opened his eyes and, with the expression of someone who has just had an epiphany, said:

“Namascoin!”

“Namascoin?” I asked, hesitantly.

Ynkö then leaned to the side, towards a curious stone totem that ended at the height of the arms of his chair. He placed his hand on a glass plate attached to the top of the artifact, and shaking his head in affirmative sign, said:

“Yes! NA... MAS... COIN.”

The plate then shone in violet, and from it beams of light of the same color ran through the veins of the rock totem, descending to the ground. There was no need to think too much - everything indicated that I had just been registered in the exchange program as "Namascoin"!

“But... what do you mean, Namascoin?” I asked again, even more distressed.

Ynkö then stood up, put his hand on my shoulder, and said:

“Believe me, my friend, it’s perfect! You are officially an Applicant now. Come with me, we have a lot to do.”

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"That’s the life!" I thought to myself in awe of the seashore. With my feet buried in the sand and my body surrendered to a good reclining chair, I devoted myself, body and soul, to the sophisticated art of doing absolutely nothing.

A clear and open sky gave way to a gentle sun that warmed without burning; the tide rose little by little, steadily gaining more and more space over the grains of sand; its revolutions seemed lazy and indifferent to the breeze of fresh air that blew to announce the arrival of twilight.

As a bonus, I still enjoyed the company of a good friend who rested next to me. Free from any other commitment than being there, each of us was enjoying the moment in our own way.

A perfect afternoon, except for some details that the years of training and experience had already taught me to perceive.

First, it was the horizon line that seemed a little further away than it should be, as if it were "stretched out" in a computer program; then, at the top, I was noticing small pulses of amber light that, timid and erratic, propagated through the blue ceiling; finally, and best of all, there was no sign of the chronic back pain that accompanies me in real life.

That’s usually how it works. Some psychedelic distortions get my attention, and then I realize I’m inside a dream. I’ve been carrying this unusual ability since my late teens, and, as ridiculous as it may sound, the truth is that I’ve learned everything by exploring the digital jungle that was the Internet of the '90s.

Lucid dreams - as they are often called - open the doors to a fantastic world where magic is at the service of willpower: fly through space; breathe into the water; walk through walls; anything is possible...

For me, however, the most interesting "power" of all is also one of the most discreet: the power to face the dream itself and dialogue with it, or in other words, the possibility to converse with your own subconscious! And of course, that psychedelic beach had everything to be another big chance.

“This is going to be a beautiful sunset, but it’s more likely we’re just drooling in the middle of the night... You know this is a dream, don’t you?” I asked, curious to know how my subconscious would answer.

“A dream? I believe we can see it that way... but if so, I have to warn you that it’s not you who’s dreaming about me,” my colleague replied.

Rather intrigued, I turned towards him, only to discover that I had been talking to a lizard all this time — a lizard the size of a Dobermann!

I had been taken by surprise. Not so much for the reptile itself, but mainly for the fact that in twenty years of lucid dreams, no one had ever told me, in a dream, that the dream was not mine.

Before I could elaborate further on what had just happened, my curious friend got ahead of me. He turned his gaze towards the horizon and, while contemplating the vast ocean, asked:

“Tell me, what do you feel here?”

Now, in addition to the initial shock, I was also confused. This did not seem to be an ordinary question, but rather an existential one. Those are the kind that should lead us to think about life and to give a meaningful answer, something for which, by the way, I was completely unprepared.

“Don’t you know what to say? Maybe it’s because you haven’t really felt anything yet,” the lizard said, and then shut up for good.

The silence seemed like a cue for me to think about the question. I decided to look back at the horizon to find an answer. To help in the effort, I began to control the intervals of my own breathing, trying to slow down the mind and sharpen the sensitivity.

The technique didn’t take long to work. Calmer, I began to connect with nature, which seemed to communicate with me through all the senses: in the delicate contrast colored by the descending sun; in the natural percussion of the crashing waves; on the soft sand heating the feet; and even in the cool breeze that carried the smell of the sea.

I was gradually getting lost in these feelings… until it happened. I don’t know how long it took, but I eventually realized I was in a deep state of peace and harmony, two things I haven’t felt in a long, long time. Anyway, I thought I was ready to answer:

“Wow, it’s like my void is finally filled, I could stay here forever.”

The lizard showed a twinge of pity for the answer, and obeying the slow pace of our conversation, remained silent. He looked up for a moment, and then he said to me, as if he could see straight into my soul:

“I’m sorry, my friend, but the relief can never be an end, it is only a means.”

The words were few, but they sure meant a lot. This is common in lucid dreams, where speech can transmit, in addition to sound, several blocks of images and feelings that greatly facilitate its understanding.

Compassion... that’s what my friend was feeling. In his eyes, my attachment to the sensation of fulfillment did not reflect the behavior of someone who was satiated, but rather that of someone who never ceased to starve. He was making it clear that I had not yet reached the final answer, and that I could go much further.

Of course, understanding the situation is one thing, but knowing what to do with it is another, and the truth is I had no idea how to proceed.

It was then that a mother and a child passed by us, laughing and jumping as they ran towards the water, in a scene so spontaneous that it filled me with joy. It was at that moment that I realized the beach was full of other people, and suddenly I clicked.

“How could I’ve completely ignored all these people so far?” I asked myself out loud.

My lizard friend smiled in approval, or so it seemed. His eyes were indicating that I had finally taken a step in the right direction. Inspired by the insight, I had the idea to close my eyes and focus on the voices around me.

At first it was strange, but the more I devoted myself, the greater the variety of people I could distinguish. It was not possible to understand any particular conversation, but all of them, together and shuffled, seemed to declare the same truth: "We are here, and we are happy".

By the time I finally opened my eyes, the day was almost over. The atmosphere was getting cooler and cooler, the sky featured the typical warm colors, and everyone was settling in to watch the sunset.

Curious, I observed that as soon as they settled down, as if inspired by the Great Star, the people there adopted increasingly calm and concentrated postures. It was incredible, but even the children seemed to reveal, behind the appearance of simple bathers, the countenance of great meditators.

I couldn’t stop thinking about what was happening, and eventually also got inspired, either by the natural spectacle or by the human spectacle - if the two could be separated at all. The time that remained was little, but its passing did not generate attachments. In fact, the more time went by, the more the phenomenon intensified.

And as soon as the blazing sphere touched the water mirror, the warmth of an ancient longing swiftly advanced through the beach, embracing all of us at once. Suddenly, without any warning, it became obvious: at that moment we were all as one.

It’s hard to explain, but it’s like we shared the same feelings, and every single one of us felt all of them at the same time. We thanked each other, not by speech, but rather in the invisible bonds of complicity. It was certain that we were uplifting one another, and that together we came to a state of fulfillment that none of us would have attained alone.

The sensation was so intense that it seemed to tear open my chest, recovering spaces long abandoned and filling them with new breaths of life. I transmitted well-being to everyone, as everyone did to me. At that moment, my old and known void was not only filled - it was profusely overflowing.

“I’ve just realized that my emptiness is not a hole…” I shared.

My friend looked very carefully, with as much attention as a lizard’s gaze can express.

“Yes, you are right. But if it’s not a hole, then what would it be?”

“It looks more like a fountain… one that until recently was all dry and empty.”

The lizard sharpened his look even more. Even if he didn’t show it, I felt his presence and his expectation growing, as if we were about to get where he wanted.

“Excellent, my friend. And now that you’ve understood that, tell me why the relief of filling that fountain can’t be an end by itself?”

It was then that, surprised at myself, I knew exactly what to say:

“Because a filled fountain is only halfway to a fountain that flows.”

The reply was accepted with satisfaction; Nothing else needed to be said. The lizard now seemed pleased and relieved, maybe even a little proud. Together, we happily embraced the domain of silence, enjoying the few minutes of sunshine that remained.

It was only when the last beam of light left the shore that the lizard spoke again:

“All right, I think you’re now ready.”

“Ready for what?” I curiously asked.

“Ready to wake up, my friend!”

And just like that I woke up! Not to reality, in this case, but from a good night’s sleep. The bed accommodated me softly and my lazy eyes had no intention of opening. Following an old habit, I contorted my body sideways, craving for that “clack” at the end of the spine - the hallmark of all my mornings.

I could have even gone back to sleep, but I noticed that I didn’t quite remember the day before, or even worse, I didn’t even remember having gone to sleep. Stunned, I felt the memory of the psychedelic dream fading, giving way to a sudden and worrying realization: I wasn’t on my own bed!

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There are two questions that, sooner or later, everyone who bumps into these diaries ends up asking me.

The first one is quite obvious: "Are you from the future?"

Well... the answer depends on interpretation, since I’m not really from the future, I’ve merely visited it. Hard to believe? It’s understandable. However — and I apologize if I am overstepping here — I would like to ask for the benefit of the doubt.

It is worth saying that before all of this happened, I was just another IT professional. Frustrated, both with my career and with the world, I used to devote my scarce free time to a failed existential search; tirelessly seeking, wherever I went, nothing less than the very meaning of life.

That’s, of course, until "day zero"; the landmark of my first spacetime journey, and from which things have never been the same. The experience was so striking that at one point I asked if I could keep a diary. The request was received by my mentors with great enthusiasm, but authorized under one condition: that I would openly share it upon my return.

As Niliph told me, on the eve of his 237th birthday: "Yesterday a deposit was issued, one of a credit that shall only be invested now". The words made no sense when I heard them, but like so many others recorded during my journey, their meanings insist on hiding far beyond the first impressions.

And although I had signed a commitment, I confess that in the end I did not desire to return. I did not want to give up the clean air, the gentle hugs and the inexplicable feeling of belonging to a collective where each and everyone works to improve themselves.

Some would say I visited a utopia, only I can’t see it that way. A utopia, by definition, can only be so as long as it is still in the future, and should it happen in the present time, it can no longer be called that. No, that place was something different…

"That place", in fact, is what I call Tokenverse: the spacetime of a mysterious human civilization, much wiser and harmonic. Instead of governments, banks, and megacorporations, there are people — or rather, people and tokens!

If you do not know what tokens are, do not worry, for so far no one you know truly understands it. For now, I can tell you that tokenizing is a way of learning to appreciate the value of things. It may not be intentional, but, wherever there is a number, the value it indicates can be questioned. And in the end, the search for the real value of things is an essential step in unraveling the very mystery of being human.

10 SELF tokens per 0.5 GAYA tokens during the Steps of Awen. It was the first transaction that showed me how everything can be different, and how we still know very little about what to do with the time we are given.

Still hard to believe? It remains understandable… even so, it’s possible that you have felt mysteriously attracted to this future, and if that’s the case, then rest assured that my diaries are for you. I sincerely hope that it’s reading brings a new perspective on what we are; one forged by the glimpse and reflections of what we will still turn out to be.

Ah, of course... I almost forgot the last question:

"Is Tokenverse really the future that awaits us? Will it be possible?"

I myself asked this question at the end of my first journey, and since then I carry the answer that I received as a great motto of life:

"Aren’t all futures possible?"

NEXT - Part 1 - "This is going to be a beautiful sunset"

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