IT WOULDN’T HAVE GIVEN US THE PRESENT
If it suits, you can substitute God for the universe. Universe works for me and I also like what the late theologian Marcus Borg calls “the more,” for whatever there may be beyond the material world. I believe there is something and it has organized the world to remind us to keep our focus on the present.
I am in what I have optimistically labeled the late autumn of life. At 71, the life expectancy tables tell me I probably have another 15 years. On second thought, I guess that puts me smack in the middle of the winter of life. Coincidently, that is where I am today, precisely in the middle of Decorah, Iowa’s winter. I tell myself, my mom lived to be 96 and her sister Fawny to 103, maybe I can beat the odds.
But trying to predict the future is a fool’s game and as my future closes in on me, I want to stop playing. Last year around this time, Joe Biden finished 4th in the Iowa Caucuses. Our Decorah caucus site was in the Decorah Middle School. Channeling the middle school vibes I looked over at the tiny Biden group from the cool and much larger Mayor Pete group. I had always wanted to be in the cool group and now I had finally made it. I looked over at that group of uncool Joe schmucks and felt so superior. Joe was the past and Pete or Bernie or Elizabeth was the future, until they weren’t.
On Sunday, I was among the 50% of Americans who did not watch the Super Bowl. So that I could revel in my superiority in choosing not to follow the sports crowd, I decided to catch up on my Schitt’s Creek viewing working my way up through the 4th of 6 seasons. No mindless following the herd for me.
Among the 100 million who did watch the Super Bowl, were 108 football experts ESPN had asked to predict the winner. 81 or 75% picked the loser Kansas City over the winner Tampa Bay. Prognostication ought to come with a truth in advertising warning.
Last February, Joe was a loser, COVID had just arrived, Tom Brady was finishing up his 20th year with New England, and to most of us Zoom was a verb. How much precious time and energy did I spend THEN thinking about what is now NOW. And how wrong I was about so many things.
I think about how our unwillingness to live with uncertainty causes so much harm to ourselves and the world. Our thirst for certainty makes us vulnerable to demagogues, propagators of conspiracies, and religious and secular fundamentalists.
The present when it comes will be challenging enough without the fog of predictions.
Life’s too precious to waste time thinking and worrying about the future. Just wait and while you are waiting, LIVE. The future will be here soon enough.
