The Future Has Not Been Canceled
In a normal year, as things wind down, I like to think back on the happenings of the last 12 months and then pack them up and put them away. Well, not this year.
I don’t want to dwell on the past. I'd rather contemplate the future. Ah, the "future". It sounds like such a luxurious place to visit, kind of like that vacation home you bought in the mountains but have not been able to visit due to covid travel restrictions, canceled flights, and a general lack of energy to do anything except hunker down. Sometimes, it almost feels as if the future has been canceled. We are told that the better strategy is to just "take it one day at a time", and "don’t worry about what may come, just focus on today". The future has been dismissed entirely.
True, it is difficult to focus on what’s next, especially when burdened by the stress of right now. The now is the narrative, and the narrative is to “only live in the now”. Live this narrative long enough, and it might just suppress our understanding of linear time itself.
Unpacking the “Next”
Why does the next matter? I say it’s because the future has not been canceled. At least, not in the way we’ve been told.
Erol Ahmed, 2015
Like it or not, we are arriving at our future. It’s been a "long, strange trip" (Grateful Dead) but the train is pulling into the next station and the last journey is nearly complete. We need to unpack those bags—go through all the dirty laundry of the past we’ve left in there. But what’s also in that baggage, perhaps wedged way down in a crevasse, compressed below all the stuff we’ve carried with us on our journey, are the notions of what we thought our future would be like—before Covid, before the lockdown, before we felt more vulnerable than we ever thought we could be. It’s what we previously thought our future looked like, the beta version.
And guess what, it’s aged, not like fine wine, but rather, like stinky cheese.
"Nothing ages so quickly as yesterday’s vision of the future.” Let’s unpack that. Untether ourselves from it. Let it go. We have all been through a lot. The experience of the past two years cannot be denied or ignored. However, we shouldn’t forget it either. Rather, we should forgive.
The Big Ask
My understanding of PTSD because of having been involved in warfare is that there is a certain kind that originates from having witnessed mayhem, even if you were not the victim of it. I admit, the Covid years were not as bad for me as they may have been for others. I did not get sick; I was able to work the entire time; I was able to go into my office, which was private and safe. While I did not travel or go out, I benefitted from the comfort of my beautiful home.
In short, I had all the creature comforts one could want if one were to hunker down. Guilty! As charged!
Nevertheless, a little voice popped up once more. Perhaps the same one that originated from when I was just a boy... the one that told me that I was responsible for dysfunction in my family, my parent’s divorce, my mother’s unrelenting work schedule just to keep our single-parent household afloat. That one. It whispered in my ear, in a little boy’s voice, saying, “you could have done more, you do not deserve a free ride, and dodging the bullet does not make you good—just lucky.”
It was as if I had a personal wicked witch of the north following me around, shrieking, “I will get you next time, and your little dog, Toto, too!”.
What little shreds of blame do we still carry from past trauma, even if our only role was as the witness? That's the thing about PTSD—it might not have been our “fault”, or even something that happened to us directly—yet still, it somehow ends up being what we blame ourselves for.
The blame, the guilt, the anger, the sadness, the confusion—all little embers still smoking, even when the big fires have been put out. Left unattended, they could become tinder for our next fire.
And how can we extinguish these smoking embers? Forgiveness.
Forgiveness—it’s a strange word and concept to use here—that there is anything to "forgive" or be forgiven about when it comes to the Covid era. But I feel it's appropriate. Very few of us believe we were our best selves during Covid. Surely, we don’t think our governance, or the world in general, was the most positive place during that era. Is it possible that we all carry a collective (as well as a personal) PTSD, firmly attached to our thoughts and feelings from the Covid era, and thus embedded in our vision of the future?
It’s a big ask, forgiveness. We may still cling to many well-worn attachments left in that former vision of the future. Our old future wants to remain attached to our narrative of how it's “supposed to be”. It's in “survivor’s guilt” mode and does not wish to move on—to invite a new future into our world. It’s something we must give up, let go, and replace with forgiveness.
But just how do we forgive and move on? By untethering our psyche from our past narrative, and the notion of our future which is attached to that narrative.
That's the big ask: forgive, release, and move on.
The Future Ain’t What It Used to Be
Strangely, we tend to think of the future as something fixed. But it’s far more variable than that. It’s a moving target, whether we wish to accommodate our new reality, or not. As Yogi Berra once famously said, "the future ain't what it used to be".
Here’s what I mean when I say that. When I was a boy, I would hunt doves with my father down in South Texas. While it might seem obvious not to try to shoot a moving bird by firing where it is "now", learning to properly lead the bird is essential. You had to judge its speed and trajectory, all the while knowing that the bird could swoop and change directions on a dime. It was part educated guess, part skill, and part instinct. The future is kind of like the rule of engaging with a moving target. You engage knowing that things change and will change again. It’s a skill we might have to re-tune, given how stuck we’ve all been these past couple of years.
When fixing your aim on your future, consider what Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, as quoted by Plato in Cratylus:
Everything flows and nothing stays.
Everything flows and nothing abides.
Everything gives way and nothing stays fixed.
Everything flows; nothing remains.
All is flux, nothing is stationary.
All is flux, nothing stays still.
All flows, nothing stays
Re-tuning Our Scope Toward Hope
My key premise in preparing for our post-Covid world is that we must re-envision our future, and even more importantly, prepare ourselves for that future. How do we best prepare for something unknown? By rebuilding an instinct that has likely gotten flabby over the last two years:
What I am talking about is HOPE.
Our crisis survival instincts can best be balanced—even counteracted—by rediscovering our instinct of hope.
Here's what author Ali Smith says about hope:
"Hope is a tightrope across a ravine between a here and a there, and that tightrope’s as sharp as a knife blade.”
This is to say that mustering up your hope is no easy feat and crossing between a less fortunate past into a more promising future can be exceedingly difficult. It’s a crossing that many never have the courage, or the willpower to make. Hope is what follows the belief that the future might be better than you can even envision, even if you don't know exactly how that might play out. Hope for the future is surely one of the most wonderful and powerful states of grace. And to have it, you must have faith in the unknown. As a human species, that’s not something we can just naturally do.
One of my favorite expressions of this sort of hope comes from George Washington, who wrote this passage in his diary on Christmas Eve, 1776, shortly before he crossed the Delaware River with the remnants of the Continental Army in a last-ditch effort to save himself and the American Revolution:
"It is vain to ruminate open, or even reflect upon the authors and causes of our present misfortunes. We should rather exert ourselves to look forward with hope, that some lucky chance may yet turn up in our favor".
Our New True North
We’ve talked about the scope facing outward toward our target, but all of this starts from within, from our inner compass. My inner compass which has confidently and correctly pointed me toward my true north in the past has gone a bit cattywampus.
But that’s to be expected. Actual compasses in the natural world do occasionally malfunction as well, sometimes because of freak changes in the Earth's magnetic forces. The Bermuda Triangle is reportedly one such place where this might happen, causing planes and ships to be lost forever.
And isn't the Bermuda Triangle an apt metaphor for the past two years we "lost" to Covid?
But here’s the good news. If you are reading this, you have not been sucked into the proverbial vortex. Congrats! But still, our inner compasses might need a bit of a reset.
So, today I’m resetting my inner compass by declaring my new true north:
I have arrived. My past journey is now done.
I am moving toward and into a new future that is not fully defined. And that’s okay, "all flows, nothing stays".
I have emptied my old baggage to the extent I am able. I have forgiven myself and others for things that I, or they, may have done, both real and imagined. I no longer wish to reflect on the "authors and causes of those past misfortunes". I am crossing that Delaware.
It is my fervent wish and desire to reacquaint myself with that state of grace called hope.
I am looking out for blessings both known and unknown and am "giving thanks and trust that they are already on their way”. (Old Native American saying)
Where will this all lead me? What does the future hold for me? I am leaning on that old reliable sage, Carl Sagan, for the final word. He liked to end his science lectures by saying, "I don’t know where I am going, but I am on my way." I am so happy to be on my way again, going wherever the heck it is I might be going. Hope to see you there!