by Elizabeth M Young

Created on: October 02, 2009

We thrive by thinking about the future as a progression toward something, even if it is the big disaster that wipes us all out. There is the immediate future to think of. What will we do for the evening? What do we have to do tomorrow? Next week? Next month? When we have some horrible task or deadline looming, we think of the day after that horrible event and pray that we live to see that day.

Thinking about the future sustains us. If it is terrible now, we imagine a future that will be better. If life is going downhill, we think about how far downhill life will roll before it all comes to a stop and we can get some rest. If we are in school, the future involves dreams of getting that sheepskin, then entering a better, freer world of great opportunity.

If we are out of school, we imagine a future where we are learning something, anything that is more than what we know now. When we have small children, we think of the teenage years and how the surlymones and hormones are going to destroy life as we know it. When we have teenagers, we think of how we are going to decorate their rooms when they leave, and how many of our grandchildren they will give us.

We think of the inevitability of death, knowing that our loved ones will be gone at one time or another. We think of our bodies as they will be aging, and as we will be trying to fight off the aging process.

We think of technology and of medicine. We marvel at what we have now. An entire office , with computer, printer, fax, scanner and copier that will all fit in a large suitcase. We think of computers that surf the web, take calls, take pictures and videos and send it all out through the air to places all over the globe.

We think of cures for cancer, healthier babies, frankenscience, and monstrous inventions. We think of wars fought with even more efficient killing machines. We think of vacations in space, at the bottom of the sea, and in virtual worlds that are cunningly realistic.

When we think of the future, we always think of everything that is life: good, evil, better, worse, and even all gone. Sometimes, we think of all humans as leaving for another place in the universe, ready to set up on another planet.

And sometimes we think of our spirits, free of our bodies, as they become part of everything that is in the world and in the universe.

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