A good analysis of what will happen here the morning after the next terror attack on the USA. David Ignatius does a scenario that seems plausible. It's entirely possible that we will not come together again, but this time pull farther apart.
Preemptive wars are obviously not only a prediction (I predict something bad is about to happen) but also an effort to change away from that predicted future (If we do X, that bad future won't happen.). Maybe Neils Bohr was thinking about us when he said, Prediction is difficult, especially about the future.
It seems quite natural that in times of tumultuous change we all make predictions. Those with the most power, eloquence, persuasion, anger, etc. get to attempt their vision of the future. Those whose future doesn't get tried will give every possible explanation of how the other side is wrong and if only we'd have listen to them, then the future would have been perfect. We are all futurists now.
There's an old Arabic saying, Any man who predicts the future is lying, even if he is right.
But our personal attempts at futurism are barely grounded in anything permanent. (When we were told to go shopping after 9/11, I had my own sneaking suspicion that we had an even more unexpected future coming.) We are so distracted from any sense of principles or permanent things that we are too easily swayed by the fads of emotion and whim.
In my talks, I explain the notion of hyperliving, where we just seem to skim along the surface of life and are so busy with all the temporary things that distract us that we don't have time to stop and think about what we're doing, let alone trying to think about it while we're doing it. All we seem to have time for is finishing the one thing so we can get on to the next thing. We need leisure time to think about the important things. It's best when we voluntarily do that, but we've just rushed along hoping that it will just solve itself. It hasn't and the cost of our not seeing the danger combined with our not effectively dealing with the danger will have frightful consequences.
Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear, but around in awareness.
James Thurber
I recall somewhere along the line that the origin of the word school comes from the ancient Greek word, skola, which means leisure. As in, we must have non-work time to learn. Now work absorbs more and more of our conscious hours. Work is important and it is too important for it to be the only thing. Take some leisurely time to think about your future and the consequences your choices. That way, when those choices come back to haunt you, you'll perhaps be better prepared . . . .
