Would you like to be able to see into the future?
A few weeks ago, someone mentioned having "foresight" as a superpower, except only wanting to see a day forward, rather than everything. The reasoning was that a day gives balance to provide a lot of opportunity, without having to worry too much about all of the negatives that are possible - like seeing loved ones die weeks, months or years in advance. This was a pretty good justification, as for instance financially, it would mean being able to pick immediate winners that will jump in the next day, and sell what will fall in the next day. Even starting with a tiny amount of capital.
For example, starting with $10 and compounding 10% a day on the markets, it would equal:
After two years:
I don't know what that number is.
But it will pay off the US debt, global debt and universe debt;
and still have some leftovers for candy.
Seeing a day into the future will be good enough. Being able to preempt by a few minutes would likely be good enough for most people to make significant changes in their lives and those of everyone around them - perhaps make a difference globally.
It really is a decent superpower.
How much do you have?
How much do you actually listen to that voice in your head that says,
"Hey buddy, just don't".
Just imagine if you could say the perfect thing every time - Or, make the perfect move every time - What kind of compounding effect would that have and how much would your life change?
Small changes add up and when they are made consistently, who we are today and who we will be tomorrow, next year or a decade down the track could be significantly different. Not necessarily better, but different still.
Due to the nature of human existence, we have the possibility to improve and, we are also constantly degrading. If we aim to change with attention, we have the ability to focus our attention on where we think we should be. If we choose to spend our attention on whatever pulls it, we will likely degrade in meaningful areas faster, because our brain is designed to conserve energy, take the easiest path - and the easiest path is doing what it is told, rather than thinking what is the right thing to do.
Just imagine if every morning when you woke up, there was a list waiting for you on the perfect way to spend your day in order to live the best version of yourself - would you do the list?
Seems a silly question?
I don't think so.
Because, while we might not have a perfect list, we do have a pretty decent idea of what we should do each day to improve at a general level. What to eat, how much to move, where to spend our money and time. We have a sense of how we should interact with people and we also have some sense of what is right and wrong. Yet, we probably aren't doing these things daily, so what makes us think that given "perfect information" our nature would change?
People seem to take the position that because something isn't perfect, it isn't good enough to implement, but life is always a work in progress by nature. It has to be, because perfection is dead, there is nowhere for it to move. Even with perfect information of the moment, it is only perfect for a short period of time before it loses relevancy and is superseded, and has to be replaced.
Imperfection is opportunity.
This means that even though we might have a prediction about the foreseeable future, it is always some degree of wrong and also, unlikely to be repeatable. There are constantly shifting dynamics in play that make what worked yesterday, a failure today. This is why we have to constantly be wary of our habits, because by definition, if we aren't paying attention, they run on autopilot, hiding themselves away from us, making us feel like they are suitable, even though we might not be happy with our results - our current position.
In all of my life, I have never met a completely happy person.
Again, this comes down to opportunity, because like it or not, we all have wants, whether it be for a new car or world peace, there is a desire in all of us, a hole that wants to be filled, a need of some kind that says, life is imperfect there can be more, or less, or different.
Change is not only a constant, it is a necessary part of the universe as without it, there is nothing, no movement at all. Blankness, non-existence of all things. However, just because change is a natural part of life, it doesn't mean that we are well-suited to changing, especially since the change we go through in a week now is what might have been a lifetime a few hundred years ago and a millennia a few thousand years ago. We have evolved in that time, but our evolution of mind and body is traveling behind our evolution of technology - it just can't keep up. If we keep progressing at this pace, the only way to survive is to be technologically enhanced, to become cyborg, raising the question as to the line of where humanity exists.
If you could see into the future and adjust actions to change the course of events, it would change the future, but also the course of events, meaning that what did you actually see? Are you the instigator of change, or a product of it? Was it you, or destiny?
It is hard to foresee what the future is going to hold, because we just don't have enough information on it and, we can't predict what kinds of discoveries any random individual might make between now and then. We might know in which direction they are currently heading, but randomness of change means only a guess at what they will find there can be made.
Yet, when you listen to people talk - they often talk with certainty.
Because humans aren't good with ambiguity, so when there isn't clarity, we fill in the space with something we can understand, even if it doesn't make practical sense, like the many gods. They have been created to give us reasons, to give us hopes, to give us dreams - a peak into our unknowable future to help us feel safe, because to think without a framework raises too many fears for too many people. We'd rather be confident that the future is looked after, no matter what we do, and that there are a set of rules to follow, even though we aren't going to follow them.
We are funny creatures.
Each day, we get the same opportunity to improve in some area of our choosing, or degrade passively. I know I am not choosing where I spend my attention optimally, but I do try to improve consistently, often not getting to where I think I should get to, but perhaps, taking the step is better than nothing. After all, without movement,
What are we tomorrow?
It probably doesn't take a superpower to answer.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
