Paradox

One of the most interesting quotes I have ever heard is from this book called "Looking for Alaska," it says: "Imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia." I did not understand it. Until I had my dream last night. I dreamed that I was two people both me and Buffy and our lives were very much the same. I also dreamed that we were sent back in time to live our lives over again. I thought about my education and the better schools I could have gone to and how I would make sure that I attended Pepperdine just in time to link up with the time traveler and prevent that paradox, but that otherwise I would completely remake my life.

That is how I came to understand that quote. Because I was intimately aware of the unintended consequences of my choices and I could now avoid them to reach a better outcome. That is why the future is a kind of nostalgia because we assume that what we know about our past has some bearing on what those choices will be in our future. Which is not necessarily true. In fact a lifetime of empirical examples has taught us that this is not true. But we see our future without the problems of our past because we think that what we know has prepared us to avoid those pitfalls.

The future is de facto just as full of flaws and problems as our past-the difference is such mistakes are yet unmade and so we feel as if with the right steps we can avoid them all. That is not true, but we can avoid some.

The future is nostalgia