“Do you suppose that human life can seem any great matter to a man of elevated mind who has embraced the whole of time and the whole of reality in his thoughts?" -Marcus Aurelius
John Keats is known for terming the phrase negative capability—that of being able to exist with mental uncertainty. As a poet, the particular context in which the concept originated for Keats was that of art and the pursuit of artistic vision even when it leads to uncertain conclusions. In other words, the best art required an acceptance of what one does not know, and that one does not know things. In Keats’ eyes, requiring complete and utter certainty was a hinderance to possibility, versus an assurance.
Playwright and philosopher Seneca provocatively quipped that the person without difficulty, and for these purposes, uncertainty, "has not been permitted to prove themselves." In other words, a slight bit of uncertainty could be seen as a useful edge in the pursuit of any endeavor. It is precisely the not knowing that generates the behaviors and choices we may consider to be our most productive.
Tantalizing as complete and utter certainty is, the most compelling future may require that we lean into the mystery, so aware of the variables of life that our focus turns to bringing our best selves to it.
And so it follows that any future is the byproduct of the intent brought to today.
Let's indulge, for a moment, in a bit of meta commentary as we outline what this piece is not about. It is not about how to predict where technology will take us. It is not about how to get ahead of trends, nor about how to thrive against the inevitable and continuous rise of machines. This piece is wholly and specifically about how the only future that materially matters is the one that you consciously and actively create for yourself, and by proxy of that, for those around you. It is about anticipating the future by consciously becoming it.
The wise person approaches the ambiguity of the future by living out systems that optimize for optimal outcomes, no matter what unfolds. She forges through uncertainty by acting on what she knows is certain—her very ability to act.
And that is where the Stoics would have us focus.
"First, tell yourself what you want to be, then act your part accordingly. This, after all, is what we find to be the rule in just about every other field. Athletes decide first what they want to be, then proceed to do what is necessary. If they decide to be a distance runner, it means one particular diet, racecourse, workout and mode of physical therapy. [...] All our efforts must be directed towards an end, or we will act in vain." -Epictetus
The journey of the prolific comedian Steve Martin presents a useful reference for us as it relates to the process of becoming. Noted for responding to a question around how to achieve notoriety with, "Be so good they can't ignore you," Martin did just that. As his autobiography Born Standing Up details, in his early years of refinement, he would practice his routines in public five or six times a day. It also took him 12 years of performing multiple shows per night until he could afford to only need to do one. What the early years of Martin's journey demonstrate is a relentless commitment to what would ultimately make eventual success inevitable: honing his craft.
Martin could not depend on virality—that is, a single clip being seen by so many that one is catapulted into stratospheric, albeit often temporary ubiquity. Martin had to convince live audiences, night after night, that he was worthy of being remarked about, to then beget new audiences. His success hinged on consistent delivery widely talked about.
“I had never really imagined success, I was just trying to be a performer,” Martin writes in Born Standing Up. “It was easy to be great. Every entertainer has a night when everything is clicking. These nights are accidental and statistical. Like lucky cards in poker, you can count on them occurring over time. What was hard was to be good. Consistently good. Night after night. No matter what the abominable circumstances.”
What Martin understood intimately was that the future would and could only reflect that which was done consistently. His iconic success isn't merely due to him being funny; his success is owed to patience and diligence in understanding how being funny could be a life.
It's stories like these, and countless others, that provoke us to ask ourselves the following question: What will impatience strip me of? Rest assured that procrastination, reduced to its core, is impatience. At the root of any disinterest-despite-it-being-good-for-you is the sensation that the energy required for the action exceeds that which one is willing to deploy toward it. Our sought-after future, however, demands the consistent deployment of energy toward that which is good for us. Objectively and Stoically speaking, "good for us" is to be interpreted as that which makes us just, temperate, brave, and free, as Roman emperor and philosopher Marcus Aurelius would phrase it. Personal and specific, the subjective good is whichever is perceived to align to our ultimate intent.
A productive view of the future, however, requires an effective understanding of the past.
"Cast your eye on the past: such shifts in the pattern of rule. And it is also possible to foresee the future. For its nature will be just the same, and there is no possibility of its deviating from the present rhythm of events. So it is all the same whether you study human life for forty years or 10,000; for what more can you expect to see?" -Marcus Aurelius
There are two concepts worth engaging as we further grapple with the future and the past: determinism and actualism.
Remaining authentic to this blog's roots, we're going to jump to the part where we illuminate the practical utility that makes these ideas worth considering. Determinism, a concept ascribed to by many Stoics within the guardrails of compatibilism, states, quite tactically, that the future is “determined by the past,” i.e. that specific outcomes are derived from specific actions, and so forth. You can shift course, but it is you that has to shift course should you want anything other than what your current trajectory presents.
Actualism, the idea that all that could be up until the proverbial now is what is, can free us from resenting the past, from stewing on the fallacy of what could've been. It's here that we meet the futility of resentment, that of feeling shame for something that by its very reality, couldn't have gone any other way. Our knee-jerk reaction is to combat this idea, as it revokes us of whatever argument against life that we've been holding on to. But if my mother had just... But if they hadn't taken this.. But if he had only done that instead, then I wouldn't be in this position. Then I would've had whatever it is I'm convinced I was meant to have. And so on.
Book I of Discourses and Selected Writings sees philosopher and teacher Epictetus convicting us of such tempestuous thinking, as he does, with the following exchange with a student: “What else does reason prescribe?" the student asks. "To accept the consequences of what has been admitted to be correct,” Epictetus replies.
It's the thinking that things could've possibly turned out differently that gives way to pain. When we accept matters as they are, we can direct our energy toward useful responses to them, primarily in the form of how those matters shape what still follows.
The Stoics advise that to accept what happened as what was meant to happen is to be aligned with reason. Equally, there is no causal future that is not wholly dependent on what is done today. Our perpetual responsibility lies in consciously operating as the cause of whatever it is that we'd prefer a future version of ourselves is experiencing. [For those curious about time theories such as the Block Universe and the like, I recommend this YouTube video as a starting point.]
"Don't put your purpose in one place and expect to see progress made somewhere else." -Epictetus
Make no mistake: What you're doing is where you're going. If you don't like what you're doing (and can't find the grander purpose in it), you're unlikely to like where you're going. It behooves us to acknowledge the difference between consciously trying to improve in something worthwhile (or persisting through a challenging season, or tedious elements), and being fundamentally misaligned to whatever is commanding your time.
What are you willing to endure in order to invite a preferred future (otherwise known as an eventual present)? Be specific, and be prepared to give your future self a rationale for your thinking, should it be questioned.
A Stoic view of the future recognizes that come what may, we bring ourselves to it. And thus, why apply disproportionate effort to anything other than that very cultivated self? Marcus Aurelius offers us the following encouragement from Book VII of Meditations: "Do not allow the future to trouble your mind; for you will come to it, if come you must, bringing with you the same reason that you now apply to the affairs of the present."
Hold your preferred outcomes in your mind. From health goals, to business endeavors, to relational pursuits, to economic interests, to desires for your children to prosper, how do these require you to operate today? We tend to think of the future as this big great ball of the unknown—something we're subject to, something both somewhat in our control yet entirely seemingly more powerful than us. It symbolizes possibilities, opportunities, ideals we often long for. It feels illusive, distant, conceptual. We also have more to do with it than we may acknowledge day to day.
This, in itself, isn't groundbreaking. It takes little more than a fundamental level of cause-and-effect awareness to know that tomorrow is informed by today. What we're bringing into view is that the next 10, 20, 50, 80 years are informed by our compounded "todays."
The practical beauty of philosophy is that no matter what's presented to us in the years and decades to come outside of our spheres of control, it grants us the tools to meet anything in question. And so we're free to focus on whoever it is we'd prefer to be in the face of what's met.
Decide, align, repeat.