Being Future Directed

Most of us would consider ourselves future-directed, in some way. In the chronological sense, we are looking forward to Friday or the big game, a holiday, or some event that is not occurring now and is expected at some later date. This is future-direction in the domain of having, and if we persist in waiting long enough, we get what we get. In the ordinal sense, we may be working through some process that has an endpoint, such as graduation, the completion of a project, or perhaps retirement, and we locate ourselves in the process. This is future-direction in the domain of doing, and to the degree that we do what we do sufficiently to complete the process, we get it done. This is the way we relate to time and the future, and while it is important, it doesn't really make any difference.

It is this relationship to the future that produces tiredness, anxiety, ennui, boredom and other ordinary ways of living one's life. William Shakespeare had something to say about this future and his words still resonate: "To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time." This is a perfect expression of the torporous aspects of daily living into a future we don't know. We don't know the future; we only know that it is "coming at us."

Perhaps we don't know the future, having never been introduced. This is intended to be our long overdue introduction to the future. We believe that the future is unknowable, and so we don't consider it. We think a lot about the future: what we'll have then, or what we'll be doing. We never really distinguish what and where the future is. It is this indistinct future that we look toward with hope or trepidation. Inquiring into the future may be worthwhile, as we all have a future.

Now it is now. What is the future? And where is it? Where is the future, right now? Some say it is not now, and that is about as useful as saying the future is not in Cleveland. It seems sensible or even obvious that the future is not here. When the future gets here, it will be the now. This is part of the confusion, or perhaps the illusion, of the future. Some say the future is "in my mind" or "in my thoughts." These responses fix the future in the domain of having -- hoping, worrying or wishful thinking. However, the underlying context of the response is powerful. Considering that our thoughts are structured in language (words, images, concepts, subjects and objects), and our thoughts are with us now, thinking gives us a clue to where the future is now. We can readily see that the future is right here and right now, where we are now, in our language. We create the future in our speaking and listening. We communicate the future into existence. If we can create a new way to say that, we language the future into Being. Then typically, we revert to relating to the existence of the future in ordinary ways. We have priorities and prefences for the future, and we concoct ordinary approaches, processes and strategies, in the realms of doing and having, in an attempt to produce the preferred future. Sometimes these strategies are quite intricate and complex, and yet the future never seems to turn out to be exactly what we expected. When an event has occurred in our experience of now, and passed into the past, what we've got is a memory or concept that wasn't included in the event, when it was the future. Although we think it should, an ordinary approach to the future seems to have little or no effect on the future. Conversely, the future has an enormous effect on us now. Seeing something on the horizon has a profound effect on one's experience of being at sea, and the future affects one's experience of life in much the same way.

The existence of the future is not, for example, like the existence of a car. One cannot lift the hood on the future, nor kick its tires. Clearly, the existence of the future is a distinct kind of existence. To investigate or interrogate the future -- to inquire into the future in a way that makes a difference -- we will have to relate to the future in something other than an ordinary way. If the future exists, and if we intend to create a powerful relationship with the future, we will have to explore it where it is. If the existence of the future is not in the ordinary realm of existence, then it must be outside the ordinary, in the extraordinary realm.

To the extent that humans are process mechanisms, like cars, we exist in the ordinary realm of existence. In the ordinary realm, everything requires a process or strategy, and the processes and strategies are very survival-oriented. Abraham Maslow has famously delineated a hierarchy of needs. When one's survival at one level of need is assured, one moves to the next level and seeks survival there. The future of survival is bleak, however. As Carl Jung pointed out, "Life itself is a grave disease with a very poor prognosis: it lingers on for years and invariable ends in death." What if we can, in some extraordinary way, skip to the top of Maslow's hierarchy (self-actualization / transcendence) and leap off? What might happen, then?

While we don't generally think about it this way, we also live in an extraordinary realm of existence. This extraordinary realm is not something that we have to earn or attain through some trick or effort or merit. We live concurrently in the ordinary and extraordinary realms, all the time. When one feels the presence of tremendous love for someone, it is one's own creation in the extraordinary realm. In the realm of the extraordinary, the existence of something begins with one's consideration or declaration of it. And we are always in that realm, whether we are conscious of being there or not. We keep forgetting this realm of Being. Once one creates something extraordinary, one tends to devise a way to survive it in the ordinary realm.

In the extraordinary realm of existence, one can create the future intentionally, and live into that future without a concern for surviving. Extraordinary is the realm of possiblities. This is the realm in which one can create a context (any context) for what is, and in that context, it is exactly that, simply by the power of your speaking it into Being. This is not "positive thinking" or pretending something is some particularly favored way. This is creating a future in language -- giving your word to it -- and standing for the power of your word.

We are accustomed to ordering our actions according to past experience. Priorities and preferences are the product of our speaking of the past, and they actually limit our creation of the future. When we are living into our priorities and preferences, we are not future-directed. We essentially turn our backs on the future, and live preposterously (also known as "leading with your behind"). This popular misdirection has produced the World the way it is -- neither a good nor bad place in the Universe, not a right or wrong one, just a definitely ordinary way to live.

Being future-directed requires one to give up -- for at least a moment -- thinking of the future as something apart from one's Self. Being future-directed includes the past without being limited by it. Being future-directed is an expression of the Self, and is expressed in the creation and declaration of the future, such that this future is in existence. when one is living consistently with a future of one's own creation -- by one's own word -- unpredictable and extraordinary outcomes proceed. This makes all the difference in the World.