The Truth about The Future

The Truth about 'The Future'
And the tragedy of not having one

So, two thousand and twelve is over. For most everyone I know, this last year was a clusterfuck of bad news, worse times, and some seriously twisted politics. The whole world seemed to get caught up in a series of bad re-runs with each headline getting more depressing than the last. There was a series of coup d'etes of every make and model, bombings, fires, deaths, and the discontinuation of the Encyclopædia Britannica. We lost the first man on the moon, a handful of nobel winners, and an all around  treasured collection of athletes, authors, artists, engineers, and strangers. Sure, we landed on Mars, opened the tallest building in the world, had a man break the sound barrier without any kind of mechanical assistance -- but lets be reasonable and not ask anyone to remember that. However, to me, as a day-to-day, news reading, God fearing, apolitical, debaucherous, cynic, none of what made the headlines was anywhere near as disturbing as the news which I found among a large collection of my peers.

There are things that, to me, appear to be universal truths; not everyone will ever agree on everything, getting laid will always be a better time than paying taxes, people will break almost any law that is made, simply because the law exists to break, and there's always a chance for tomorrow, no matter what the implications of Carpe Diem, in its entirety, suggest. In the last year though, I have met people who seem to feel quite the opposite of the latter and that has made for some loud and serious thinking. Are there really people out there who genuinely feel like there's no future, and I don't mean in some, trumped up, disenfranchised, existentialist, 'the world is shit and I am nothing' kind of way, but people who really feel, think, and believe that there is no future? Now that's a fucking nightmare; a genuine modern tragedy of the era, and something I don't believe should be forgotten.

How does one end up with such a void of hope? You might think it's fear, which makes a lot of sense. The world seems to be  a place no one is happy with, at least not with spectator sport politics and seven hundred recalled channels of pharmacy grade Soma, so having hope might seem like a one way trip to depression  and bleak sunrises. I could swallow that and sleep at night, even if I didn't condone it. I could even handle a general sense of apathy, where people just didn't give a shit about tomorrow. There really wasn't much I could have heard as an answer and not sleep through unless it was the genuine belief that the future just wasn't there -- and that's exactly what I got. 

These weren't people who were living in destitute squalor either, but rather those who lived somewhat royally by common standards. They are people who have little worries in the affairs of shelter, or sustenance. These are people who have no shortcomings in the affairs of friendship, companionship, or family. These aren't people who are living in the midst of a constant pissing contest by warlords, or who are even harried by modern political themes. They're not poor, they're not living in bad neighborhoods, and they have a constantly queued collective of faithful practitioners ready and willing to lay down their time and tribulation to see these people's days filled with whatever manner of merriment they choose.

They are people who, for every angle I'm aware, and by their own testimony, have a life most of us long for as part of our cultural heritage. These are people who are living the true dream of life, chasing happiness however they see fit, and holding nothing back, and yet they speak of their own lives, their futures, with a sense of void that no words could begin to articulate. The genuine truth I heard was that there was, at the end of the day, only the end of the day -- and that idea has left me in nightmares nearly every night since.

I wanted to write it off as some kind of rebellious, anti-cultural, culture. I wanted to think of it as some kind of trite, neo-punk, or quasi-goth, anti-hipster, mindset. It would have been a lot easier to sleep if I'd been able to convince myself that was true. Believe me, I tried. Indulging in all manner of inhumanities and depravities, and trying to come up with some kind of twisted, crazed, half-drunk, logic that could make it all seem reasonable. The further the chorus shifted, no longer limited to the ranges of fringe elements of the world, the more I quickly realized jut how far this went. No amount of drinking or insomnia would wash this horrible mess away.

So what does one do, when they genuinely believe in a future, when presented with this sort of thinking? What do you do with all manner of people, from 'counterculture' to 'blue collar', start touting off about the pointless idea of future, momentum, or any slight semblance of hope? What do you do when you encounter people who are in stations most us would dream for, at least in principle, sit around and tell you how you're a damn fool for even thinking about tomorrow? Well, I'll tell you exactly what you do.

You see, life has a very real way of giving you what you give to it. If your days are filled with a blasé attitude about life, never giving credit to the wonders about you or tipping your hat to the bullets of existence you've managed to dodge, then it doesn't come as such a painful shock that the world holds no future for you. It's no different, really, than those people who spend their lives in a constant train wreck of failures because they're forever neck deep in their own bullshit. You have to keep going for tomorrow.

You have to have wants that you don't stick in a shoebox or block yourself away from because of the self-apparent hypocrisy of your own personality. You stop sitting around lamenting your closet fetishes for people you publicly deride, you bring them home and you fuck them with a wild abandon. You let go of your previous partners who've well moved on and stop making excuses as to why they're holding you back. You sit down in front of a mirror and you give up all your issues about gender and sexuality. You tell the secret object of your affections how you feel. You quit drinking, you do the thing you've always wanted to do, because that is your future.

You quit lying to yourself, you quit making excuses that make you seem justified in your inaction, you do that because you've already heard the biggest bullshit on the matter of stasis any of us are ever going to hear. You have to understand that it's stasis that kills the future. It's not a lack of hope, it's not a lack of want, but a lack of life and growth that kill the future. It's a denial of direction, for reasons that I will never even attempt to understand, that will break down the future. It is the fire of our passions that lights the way we will travel and without those things, either because we convince ourselves we cannot have them, that they are wrong, or whatever justification it is we give ourselves, we do, indeed, have no future.

Life is not bullshit unless all you feed it is bullshit. Think about yourself, think about your life, right now. Think about your aspirations, think about where you always wanted to see yourself, and then think about all the bullshit you've invented to keep yourself there. Now, think about the people who won't see a future, who can't because they choose not to at all. Look back at your bullshit, look at that choice. Take a good long look and consider this:

Those who admit to the choice of not having a future? At least they're being honest.