I was riding my bike over a particularly steep bridge over the freeway one Saturday afternoon when I suddenly was overwhelmed by the insights from a vision that lasted only a few seconds. I was almost at the top and my eyes had just cleared the bridge’s crest. At that moment I could see both the road right below my tires and the road a mile away. What I couldn’t see was what was between the immediate and the far ahead, what was on the other side of the crest.
What overwhelmed me was how much that momentary vision represented Life: I could see what was right in front of me (day-to-day life) and a mile down the road (old-age) but I couldn’t see what was in my near future. Was there an easy downhill or a cliff? A smooth ride or one filled with potholes and speed bumps? I had no information about what lay in my immediate future, only expectations. I assumed that the other side was just like the side I was climbing but that was all I had: expectations and assumptions.
Imagine how much simpler life would be if we could see that middle ground, that unknowable near future? We wouldn’t need any assumptions. We would be ready for the car crashes, the unwanted pregnancies, the unexpected windfalls and losses, the tears and frustrations and laughter. But if we knew too much, would life be boring, just a long dull trudge to our old age and eventual death? Would we lose our hope that tomorrow will be better and brighter?
Perhaps our collective vision of the future is so dark and bleak because we can only see today and assume that tomorrow will be just like today and that scares us. The nightly news tells us all the horrible details of airplane disasters and gunmen attacking schools, of hospitals bombings and politicians giving away our basic rights, of massive wildfires and floods. Our daily lives are scary, filled with life-wrenching changes that can appear at any instant.
So it is not surprising that many people want the future to return to our pasts, where the guys in white hats always won and the black hats always lost and were punished. It was simpler and predictable. But what we tend to remember are just the best parts and forget just how horrible the bad parts of the past really were.
Especially since fear-mongers who are literally profiting from scaring us about the dust bunnies of tomorrow. The tell us, “There are monsters in your closets and hiding under your beds: just follow us and give us all your money and loyalty and we will protect you.”
Which is why we need to start thinking and planning for the kind of future we all want to share. If we can’t imagine a better shared future then we will be forced to accept the negative futures that we individually fear. However, if we can envision a better future, we can start planning for how to get to that better future.
The first fact that we’ll have to accept is that we’ll never be able to envision a single future that everyone everywhere will embrace. But that’s actually a good thing. Mono-cultures are fragile and prone to collapse. Which means that any vision of a future that is big enough to include 8 billion earthlings will have to embrace and encourage a variety of life-styles and cultures and societies and economies. But most importantly, people will must have the FREEDOM to move between these various life choices.
The most interesting life for most 20-somethings is an urban life, with lots of lights and entertainment and drinking establishments. The most attractive life for most young parents probably consists of quiet neighborhoods with friendly neighbors who also are raising young children who can share babysitting and bottle-washing needs, who will move bikes and sports equipment out of their driveways without getting upset, who will volunteer their time and attention to coaching teams and teaching painting and other arts. Many people want to live in small towns or on farms; many others want to get away to the big cities. Empty-nesters may want to live near their kids or to spend their time traveling.
Human history has tended to limit our thinking to what our ONE career will be or the ONE place we want to live. Our shared vision should include the option to live where we want to live with the the people we want to live with and to move between the various possible lives to find the lives we find most pleasing.
What a joy to be able to say, upon reaching that blurry far off future, that I lived several different lives and enjoyed each one of them. They were each perfect in their own way.
no images of new cars and moving to new homes, nothing of what was going to happen between today and old age, a mile down the road.
When we crest that bridge to tomorrow, we expect to see pretty much what we saw going up the front of the bridge: another downhill covered in aging asphalt, more fading paint on the lane dividers, more cars zipping past us, the birds in the sky, the trees and grass around the soulless buildings. The hallmarks that define our daily lives.
Fortunately, we’ll never really know what our tomorrows hold for us. Every day has a potential for disasters and surprises, for wounds and moments of wonder, for mistakes, misfortunes and miracles (both large and small). When we lose our hope that tomorrow will be better and brighter we lose some of what makes life enjoyable.
Most of today’s books, movies and television is generally full of violence and pure evil beings and massive forces oppressing the masses. It’s no wonder that we yearn to be the plucky heroes who refuse to give up or give in to the Evil or the Big Brother forces seeking to control our every waking moment. It’s no surprise that almost every vision of the future includes guns and weapons that shoot to kill because murdering the controllers seems to be the only way to escape the constraints placed upon our daily life.
The only part I could see clearly was the road right in front of me: my today. The distant view was indistinct and blurry: my future. And what I really needed to see was what awaited me just over the crest of today: the white-knuckle thrill ride of existence, of the bumps and potholes and impending accidents that were awaiting me just on the other side of today.
We are all just a small piece of a huge social machine, a structure too big and powerful for us to believe that we could control. We feel like the feather in Forrest Gump: we are blown along by the winds of current events, swept away in the swirling drafts of today without any control over our tomorrow.
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