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I Can See the Future

June 28, 2007 1:48 AM

ow, before anyone starts talking about how I'm crazy or I have delusions of grandeur, let me explain that I don't actually think I can see the future.

I guess after a first sentence like that, I should probably explain why I think that sort of disclaimer is necessary. See, I want to write about how I can sort of see the future. But it's not really that I can see the future, it's that I can predict the future. And it's not really that I can predict the future, it's that I can weigh probabilities pretty well. And, most likely, in a lot of instances, I'm influencing everything, so I don't know if "clairvoyance" is the right word for what I'm talking about here. Let me explain a little more, which will hopefully have the effect of confusing you.

I generally operate under two assumptions. First, nothing catastrophic is going to happen to me. A consequence of that assumption is that I will generally get the things I need. I feel pretty comfortable making this assumption because it's never proven false. About the worst thing I can think of happening to me is having someone I love die but, fortunately, no one I love has ever died. Sure, some day someone will, and it will suck. But I know I'll be able to deal with it somehow, even though I dread it. So it's hard to fear horrible things when I know that I will, after a while, be ok after having the worst thing I can imagine happen to me. Sure, maybe it's just ignorant bravado, but I think I'll be ok. I hope I will be, anyway. I have faith that I will be.

Another reason that I have faith in this assumption is that, largely by luck, I've got myself a pretty solid support system. Let's say that my apartment building burned down. I have any number of beds and couches and floors I can sleep on. Let's say I ran into ridiculous financial difficulties. I've got two degrees--I could easily get a slightly above average paying job. I might not be happy with it, but I wouldn't starve. Let's say that someone I care about gets sick of dies. I know that I have a huge number of people that I could turn to for advice and support. I have lots of shoulders I could cry on.

The first assumption, then, is positive: it's an affirmation that I will be ok.

The second affirmation, by contrast, is negative. It's the assumption that, while all the things I need will somehow work themselves out, I will almost never get the things I want most. I've written before about that Lego pirate ship I saved up for when I was a kid. The gyst is that I saved up for a long time to buy this huge pirate ship, but, when I went to the store with all my saved-up money, the thing wasn't there. So I ended up settling for an RC car, even though that's not what I really wanted. Well, that same thing has happened to me over and over again in my life. I'm not someone who gets the brass ring, and, while I'm generally very satisfied with the state of affairs in my life, I'm not someone that gets up in the morning and has magical awesome things happen to them.

Things just click for some people. Maybe they win the lottery, or they're lucky enough to be in a rock band that makes it big, or they write some small-time play that gets turned into a huge Hollywood film. Some people are just at the right place at the right time. Everyone has giant, unattainable, ridiculously ambitious dreams (at least I hope everyone does), but very few people have those dreams come true. When we were kids, we all wanted to be astronauts, or princesses, or secret agents. But how many of us became those things? How many of us had those dreams come true? Not very many. I know none of mine ever have.

So the second assumption--that my dearest, most sought-after dreams (being a superhero's an example of one of these, but it's not a very good one because it's clearly absurd. I have more realistic dreams than that one) will never come true--is nothing more than a statement about probabilities and reality.

These two rules have held pretty much throughout my life, and I'm confident that they'll hold for the foreseeable future. So what does all that mean? It means that maybe I should be smarter about what I get my hopes up about. But I can't help it. Sometimes I just want to believe that something amazing will happen to me. Maybe I'll find out tomorrow, for example, that my parents aren't actually my parents. Maybe I'll find out that they found me in the middle of a field, among the wreckage of what seemed to be an alien spacecraft, wrapped in blue and red blankets. Or maybe something much more commonplace will happen.

In any event, you can't help what you get excited about. You can't help what you hope for. At least I know that, when the universe inevitably disappoints me, I'm going to be ok.

3 Comments

TheExpat said:

Ismael,

The wife and I are 12 hours further into the future than you, and we can say with unanimous clarity that you should really reconsider the whole peanut butter bath you'll be having at 10:30am today. I mean, morning baths are generally a tad overindulgent (decadent even), but seriously. It's gonna cost you like a bazillion dollars to get old Peter Pan out of your plumbing.

June 29, 2007 2:55 AM

Utah said:

I hope your version of the future is much less ambiguous than Isaac Mendez'.

June 29, 2007 6:48 PM

TheExpat said:

To be truthful, I've always held unrealistic aspirations for myself. Nothing like your wanting to be the Son of Jorel, but close. The problem with these dreams is that I would have to give up so much of the shit I'm used to to fulfill them. I'm pretty satisfied with my life, and to give it up for what almost probably will spell disaster doesn't make sense to me either. The cause would have to be really great.

June 29, 2007 9:38 PM