Future

The future is our Number One Enemy.  Obviously.

Everything bad that will happen to us will happen at some point in the future.  So, if we could just eliminate the time after this time right now, we’d be fine.

Climate change, nuclear war, economic depression, yet another tour by the Rolling Stones—it’s all stuff that hasn’t happened yet (or, at least to the most dire degree); consequently, the best way to prevent those events from coming about would be to simply cancel what’s upcoming.  Then, we wouldn’t have to worry about what might be—or probably will—since it wouldn’t.

Simple, yes?

Of course, as they say, the devil is in the details and the specifics of eradicating the future are devilish, indeed.

First among these is the difficulty of planning.  After all, the very act of doing so assumes the future, which is the very thing we’re trying to eliminate.  Clearly, no less paradoxical than being opposed to abortion but in favor of “stand your ground” laws.

But, maybe we could just wing it.  You know, excise the future without preparing for it—kind of like how you undertook a camping trip as a teenager.

But what would a today without tomorrow be like?  And how would we even experience it?

Perhaps the alternative is to go backwards, not forwards.  This isn’t to say that the past is all rosy (I’m pretty sure the Stones toured all through the 90s and “Aughts,” as well), but at least we’d know what we’re in for.  Humanity has already made it through the environmental, political, and economic crisis that we’ve already made it through and so we’d surely be successful with them again.

It's the ones we haven’t faced so far that will do us in; those are the ones to avoid.

So, starting today, let’s all have yesterday be the first day of the rest of our lives.  

The past is our only hope for the future.