Thursday, April 9, 2015

There Is No Map

Here's the thing about the future:
There is no map.
There is no telling, there is no knowing.
It is out there and you have to go whether you like it or not.

You have to get used to this. You need to work out your feelings about it, about how nobody is going to tell you if you got the answer right because nobody knows if you got the answer right. You need to work those feelings out now because you are already late because the future is always out there and you have to go whether you like it or not.

You can't argue the fact. You can't say that the future isn't out there, you can't say you don't have to go. The future is out there and you have to go whether you like it or not. If you argue the fact, the future will still come and you will be more and more certain you are correct while you are more and more clearly wrong, and the future will still be out there and you will still have to go. Whether you like it or not.

You have to get used to this.

You have to.





There may be a map. You may be able to draw a map. You stand slightly ahead, you can see a little farther. Describe what you can see through the rain to someone who has a pen. Describe what you can't see. They will draw what they hear, they will draw what they think they hear and what they don't hear. The future is out there and you have to go. You find yourself standing at the edge of the map you've just drawn. The future is farther out, and you have to go farther, we have to go farther. Whether we like it or not.

There may be telling. You may tell a story about the future, the one that you want. We all tell a story about the future that we want. Together, we make a story about the future that we want together. We're agreed on a story, we tell a story. The future is out there and we have to go whether we like it or not. Telling has not changed that. The future we tell may not be the future that is out there. Telling is not going. You have to go.

There may be knowing. You may know where you have been, you may know what you can see. We may know what we can't see. When you stand slightly ahead, we may trust you. The future is out there, and if we have been out there together enough, we may trust each other without a map, without knowing.

Let's go.







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