Thresholds

Robbing ourselves of our present experience

THE FUTURE IS AN ABSTRACTION,
EXISTING ONLY IN THE MIND

"Thought of the Week" for October 2, 2006

[Modern civilization] is insatiably hungry because its way of life condemns it to perpetual frustration. ...the root of this frustration is that we live for the future, and the future is an abstraction, a rational inference from experience, which exists only in the brain. The "primary consciousness," the basic mind which knows reality rather than ideas about it, does not know the future. It lives completely in the present, and perceives nothing more than what is at this moment. The ingenious brain, however, looks at that part of present experience called memory, and by studying it is able to make predictions. These predictions are, relatively, so accurate and reliable (e.g., "everyone will die") that the future assumes a high degree of reality--so high that the present loses its value.

...To pursue [the future] is to pursue a constantly retreating phantom, and the faster you chase it, the faster it runs ahead. This is why all the affairs of civilization are rushed, why hardly anyone enjoys what he has, and is forever seeking more and more. Happiness, then, will consist, not of solid and substantial realities, but of such abstract and superficial things as promises, hopes and assurances.

Alan Watts. (1951). The Wisdom of Insecurity. New York: Vintage. p. 61

Comment:

The cost of living for the future?
Sacrificing the reality of the Now

by Reg Harris

Copyright © 2007 by Reg Harris. All rights reserved. Updated October 5, 2007. All rights reserved. Apart from properly cited quotes and short excerpts, no part of this article can be copied or used in any form without written permission from the author. For permission to use, please contact me.

One of the most important calls to adventure in our journeys in life comes when we have lost contact with the reality of our present because we are too focused on the goals of our future. To live in pursuit of the future is to lose our ground in the real, the present, which is the only place where we can live.

In this sense, to constantly focus on the future is to rob ourselves of a genuine experience of life. This is, I believe, one of the reasons many children are turned off by school. We have 14-year-olds making four-year academic plans when their focus in life is on trying to figure out who they are in this moment. The joy of growth and learning as a present-moment engagement in life is subjugated by fear to an unnatural focus on a future that is, for the moment, unreal and unpredictable.

An extension of this is the insane idea that adolescents should "plan" their futures. Consider this. A 15-year-old sets a goal for her future. She focuses completely on that goal, avoiding distractions of other ideas or diversions. Finally, at age 30, she realizes her teenage "dream." Is that good? One would think so. She was able to set a goal and work on it until it was accomplished.

However, look at it this way: Fifteen years after setting her goal, as a woman at age 30, she finds herself in a life that was determined by a teenager, whose understanding of life and herself was that of a 15-year-old. No adult would let a 15-year-old dictate his or her goals and direction. Yet this is exactly what we are doing when we have teenagers setting long-term goals.

Why should we let our child selves manage our adult selves? For teens, life should be an unfolding in the present rather than a drive toward the phantom of the future. This unfolding, this self-discovery and self creation, is their journey and when we drag them into focusing on a future that is, as Watts writes, nothing but an abstraction, we are robbing them of the real opportunities available to them during their journey through adolescence. We forcing them to gamble on the abstract phantoms of an unknowable future.