Predictions

As little kids we rarely think about the future. Then, from adolescence through young adulthood, we are obsessed with it. Adults strive to make their own future as happy and secure as possible. Old folks increasingly dread it. Predictions are important.

At least in this culture. My probably simplistic images of other societies goes something like this: tribal and what used to be called primitive societies are fully engaged in each present moment – all past and future is equally vague “dream time.” Some cultures such as the Egyptians believed that all time was like the present – eternally the same. Buddhists believed in a great wheel, changing but repeating forever. Chinese time floated along like misty clouds and mountains, eternal but transient. And modern Europeans believed in an arrow of progress – even in religion – where actions in the present could determine the future. 

The “arrow predictors” have won, at least in this industrializing era. Those who figured things out and applied their ideas changed the world. Caring about the future, consequence, and planning have now turned into religious visions. 

Like other religious visions,these have also rapidly fragmented. So now we have predictions good and bad. Unfortunately often shaping our lives into fantasy as we are informed by various “experts” about what the future holds in store. 

We are just as blind about what will come as any homo sapiens ever was. We still only inhabit the moment. The predictions of our shaman equivalents – ” experts” – are just as unlikely and irrelevant as dream interpretations ever were.