The Problem

The problem with the future is that it is uncertain. I find it nearly impossible to confidently choose a path because there is no way to tell whether it will be fruitful or a bust, enjoyable or a drag. One can work incredibly hard to achieve something, hate the work, live out dozens of years in turmoil and angst and frustration then 'achieve' their goal and find themselves no further than they started. Life is so axiomatically full of failure that ambivalence (and I say this partly joking, partly serious) seems to be the best possible course. At least one can hope that the world will lead them to a decent place (I like to think of it was the lowest energy spot, like a round rock resting carefully at the bottom of a pit) and that personal interests and half-formed ideas and naive notions won't push one off into some terrible and bizarre place. Plus if you leave things up to chance you can at least blame fate and not just yourself.

I'm at this place in my life right now where I have worked fairly hard to get to a 'desirable place', where I can theoretically get a well paying and probably stable job in challenging area but I could also get one of these jobs and end up way over my head, totally miserable and laid off within six months or a year. This is the thing. I just have no way to tell. I could, too, take a radical tack: pursue writing unremittingly and end up in an unheated shack somewhere, alone and destitute and--more likely than not--not even producing any work. This might come off as dramatic but it seems like the two most likely positions for me. There is, of course, a path in the middle but this is more like a greyscale of possible paths, a range or area of gradations that are generally unsavory.

The problem with the future is its possibilities. Knowing that the future will have a definite outcome and yet this outcome is impossible to perceive or even guess accurately. It's like this hidden box with a million possible ants and a million possible butterflies and you are supposed to stick your hand in and just grab one.

Who knows.