“They talk of the future like today will never last
They talk of the future like it's already the past” –Michael Franti
They talk of the future like it's already the past” –Michael Franti
Many things have happened to me lately that have made my brain start thinking of the future. Being a college student, you are constantly set up for prying questions, and conversations similar to this:
Person: Rachael! I haven’t seen you years! You never come home.
Me: Yes, I am quite busy
Person: Where are you going to school? What are you studying?
Me: Westminster, it’s a liberal arts college. Spanish.
Person:…Oh what are you going to do with Spanish?
Me: Oh I don’t know for sure, teach, translate, mission work...
Person: You should probably figure that out soon, time is running out!
Me: I’m not too concerned because I have a lot of great options.
Person: Oh so like the Peace Corps?
Me: Sure, maybe
Person: I was joking…
Me: oh…
Telling people my future seems to make the listener very uncomfortable. My guess is they don’t like the fact that my future plans are not exactly plans, but wishes.
In my mind, the concept of a future plan is an oxymoron. There is no way one can predict the future. Future, future, future; that is all the world seems to be focused on. Whatever happened to living in the now? I think people have become incapable of living in the present mainly because they are not content being in their own thoughts. How many thoughts swirling around in our head are actually ours? Most of them are borrowed, adapted, stolen, and overheard.
Take the news. What is happening around the world? Many people do not know, (and if you don’t know what is going on in the present, what gives you the thought that you can predict what will accurately happen) and the problema más grave es all of the information is coming through our brain bias. I personally believe that what is going on in the world can only start to be understood if one has seen it with their own eyes. I do not want to witness “news” through the veil of FOX News or CNN. I want to see the world before I decide how to react to the situation.
But what makes understanding very difficult? Well, I live in Amish country. And this very fact can certainly produce some depressing thoughts such as: how can I change the world if I cannot see the world or leave this town? Well the short answer to that is conversation.
Talking to others is one of the best ways to understand expierences using phenomenology (yes Dr. Rennie, I did just use that term out of Religion class). Pulling back from the way we normally look at information, sometimes we need to pretend we are not ourselves. This should be simple for the majority of the world who already pretend they are someone else. We could all heed Kurt Vonnegut’s advice, “You are what you pretend to be. So be careful of what you pretend.”
I don’t know what the future will hold, whether I will end up in Chile or Colombia or Clarion (though I certainly hope not the latter) but there are two things I know for certain I wish to have happen…
1. I hope to someday have a cactus themed wedding
2. To dress my future child like this…
The future is no place to place your better days,
Rach
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