Though looking at both the present and the future is no more than an obscure assessment of what is already before us, our sinews are nonetheless agitated by the thought of the future as though it were some aspirational goal as opposed to a synthesis of currency. Often I find that projection about the future belies a considerable satisfaction with the present. It is rather like pecan pie – one piece and you want more! Maybe even with whipped cream the second time!

Looking down the road is imagining what things will be like when things are different.  Naturally things are not always assured to be different; in fact – as we well know – things more often than not remain the same. The one thing that for certain will not change is us.  As I have remarked so many times before, “There ain’t no ship to take you away from yourself“. We are stingingly reminded of this adage when sitting abroad in a café of a remote metropolis; somehow nothing has changed in spite of the alteration of the setting. The world is caught within our mind wherein our thoughts and hypotheses circulate like fine wire.

In this pandemic era when so many of us wish to go somewhere but cannot, the attraction of looking down the road is all the greater. It is however a fantasy tainted by the reality of COVID and its lingering effects. Being obliged to make do with what is, is not for the pusillanimous.  It requires an inner agreement that one is not so much being restrained as rested. Then one must adopt a vision of the present only. Removing oneself from the future is simply to erase myth. If anything happens in the future it will only be because of what happens in the present.

Though it hardly relates to philosophic enquiry, I am bound to observe when speaking of the present and the future that there was a day I had no idea I’d have the boon to do precisely what I wish when I wish. This is so notwithstanding looking down the road. The point is, there’s no purpose or value in trying to see the future.  Que sera, sera! More to the point however is that everything depends upon the present.  For that reason alone we are encouraged to focus upon what is close at hand.