Looking Back at Today
Or, how will the future visit?
“To study history is to study humanity. And to try to foretell the future without studying history is like trying to learn to read without bothering to learn the alphabet.” — Octavia Butler, writer
“It's impossible to understand the world of today until today has become tomorrow.” — Chuck Klosterman, cultural critic
“Chores are a favour you do for your future self.” — Pete Holmes, Comedian
People love stories where we get to speculate about the future.
This seems especially true when the future is painted as bleak or oppressive. From Max to Terminator to even Wall-E, post-apocalyptic stories resonate with us a lot more than ones that present the future as some sort of utopic dream world where we solved all our problems and are living happily ever after. Likely because that’s not an overly compelling plot; but I suspect it also has something to do with the way a really good story should teach us something about ourselves.
This is why the best stories about the future are the ones that hold a mirror up to our present.
When once asked about the pessimistic future she was writing about in her science fiction novels, Octavia Butler responded by saying, “I didn’t make up the problems. All I did was look around at the problems we’re neglecting now and give them about 30 years to grow into full-fledged disasters.”1 Butler is getting at something really important for us here, the future doesn’t emerge in a vacuum. It, like everything else, is the result of a lengthy series of interconnected decisions, priorities, and events. It’s not a static, fixed place; we are making the future right now.
So when we tell these stories we are really asking deeper questions about our current selves and our priorities, and where those might lead us if left unchecked. In this way these stories become a form of time travel, but not ones where we go forward, rather the future comes back to visit us.
Like the final ghost in a Christmas Carol, the future is always a warning.
So often we treat the history of the world as this unchangeable, fixed course that we have no choice but to surrender ourselves to. Rather than asking questions about how the present came to be, we just accept it as a given. But this misses the important truth that much of what we enjoy today is the result of choices and actions made by people who decided that things can and should be better. Imagine what our lives would be like if they had simply accepted their fate and chosen to believe that change was too hard or too impossible to try to fight for. They fought not just for themselves, but for all of us.
And thinking about that, I can’t help but wonder how we will be remembered by those who look back at us?
In a really beautiful — and hopeful — letter to the future, Jenny Odell writes, “everything we had now that was beautiful had been struggled for, just as much of what you have that is beautiful is what we will need to struggle for.”2 The tone she takes here is decidedly different from the cautionary tales of post-apocalyptic science fiction where humanity gave up somewhere along the way and lost the future. In Odell’s letter the future visits us as a friend, inviting us into the responsibility of winning it.
We don’t have to sit back and settle for a status quo that rewards a few at the expense of the rest. We don’t have to watch as the wealthy amass more wealth for themselves at a steep cost to the wellbeing of our environment. If we want the future to be better, it takes intention and collective will.
Thanks for reading to the end,
Weekly News Digest - “The Blowhole”
For this week’s news we have a couple events that we are hosting that we would love to invite you to join us at.
Uniting For a Sustainable Future: Public Forum on the Greenbelt. In the spirit of collective action for a better tomorrow, we’d love for you to join us on September 12th in Barrie for this special community forum on how we can protect the Greenbelt and respond to the Ontario government’s corrupt land grabs. Learn more and RSVP at the link.
Gather for the Greenbelt, an evening with Margaret Atwood. We’re hosting a very special fundraiser on October 28 in Barrie with special guests, Margaret Atwood and Sarah Harmer. It’ll be a great evening of music, food & drink, art, and inspiring conversations. Get your tickets today!
Join the Pod
Like what we talk about and want to engage with our coalition more? Check us out on social media or drop us a line if you’d like to volunteer: info@simcoecountygreenbelt.ca
