We all deal with the future. We have our own personal future of childhood, teenhood, adulthood and declinehood. We can save ourselves trouble, stress and anxiety by concentrating right on the present and the fact that the past is gone and the future has not arrived. But that is not the end of the story. Around age 4, we come to understand that somewhere far out in the future, we face death.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/phenomena/2013/07/26/when-do-kids-understand-death/
Some thinkers feel that understanding mortality and the fact that death lies in our future is THE fundamental marker of humans that distinguishes them for other forms of life.
The ability to imagine, to investigate and experiment enables us to think about the future in more detail and to steer ourselves toward or away from situations in the future, at least to some extent. I am writing this on the 21st of January, one third of our calendar through the winter season. Winter began on the day of the solstice, a day I can imagine brought wonder and awe and relief when ancient people could see that the lowering sun and the lengthening night began to reverse course. Maybe the light would not disappear.
I have some posts about the 1972 book "The Limits to Growth" that prompted me and two fellow professors to launch our college course called "Futures." From ancient Biblical prophets to today's worries about climate and water and poverty, human imagnations have explored ideas and images of the near and far future.
https://fearfunandfiloz.blogspot.com/search?q=Predictions
Many attempts to figure out what will happen turn out to be quite wrong. Many predictions are too vague to know if they were fulfilled or not. Depending on what is imagined and what is meant, the messiah hasn't come, YET. Without a date, predictions can always be said to be about a future that hasn't arrived yet.
A friend sent me a YouTube link to a talk by Scott Galloway, a professor of marketing at NYU. His predictions related to American and world business and commerce over the coming year. He starts by reviewing predictions that did not come true that he made last year. Correct or not, his ideas are interesting.
