Who can foresee the future or weave it from the past? Who knows what a man will speak or when he'll breath his last?
The future lies hidden in impenetrable cloud, while the past, with each expiring second, passes beneath a shroud.
The present rests precariously--yet perpetually--on the horns of fugacious dilemma. Where can today's video screen connect with tomorrow's antenna?
Show me the pavilion wherein lies futurity's looking glass. Who'll march victorious from the field, and who'll remain cold upon the grass?
Murky night obscures the way, so we seldom see beyond today. Tomorrow neither reveals itself nor deigns its secrets to betray.
I may be a mess, but I do shower--that's where the first lines of that mess above came to me. Wouldn't decisions be easier if we could see how they're going to work out? That reminds me, Iago, Atu, and Alex have a discussion about that very idea and the problem of unintended consequences in Truth in Flames, Book 5 of the Tomahawks and Dragon Fire Series. Here's part of it:
--“Every stick has two ends. Every decision has a consequence. When we choose one, we also choose the other. Often, both choice and consequence are easily seen. It is the host of consequences unforeseen and hiding in the darkness beyond our comprehension that we fear most. Every stick we take up may be connected to a network of others. If one could see every stick, every consequence, would the decision be any less difficult? Understanding all the consequences might force us to select between exquisitely painful choices. Mere mortals are not made to cope with such manifold manifestations of the mysterious future. Indeed, the future is formed by a network of our own decisions and the choices made by so many others that we do cripple ourselves in compacting the whole weight of all the ponderous freight that follows upon that single point.”--
I'll leave you to cogitate on that while you will.
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