Dispositions

Reading over my last post, I realize that one of the biggest problems with trying to predict the future is the fact that it will be laced with excessive hope or excessive fear, depending on your disposition. And then also depending on your disposition, that fact makes you want to be active or despondent and lazy.

There's many differences between men, from the small and insignificant to the large and cardinal. One may feel sick from sitting on a train watching the scenery of that which he has passed, and the other may feel comforted by seeing it all from the perspective of contemplation rather than in agitated anticipation. In the same vein, those that feel a foreboding when they aren't sure of all possible outcomes, are also those that feel the future as a variable best narrowed. Or, alternately, there just isn't anywhere else to sit.

It's a common thing to think of travel when you think of the future and hence all our "put your hands behind the wheel" "take the reigns" "don't be a passenger" "stow away your knapsack for takeoff and landing" metaphors when thinking about taking control of your environs when thinking about the future. But then sometimes being a passenger can be really pleasant. Not because you like the feeling of not having control - as much as people like to profess otherwise, people do like things done their way, and are never too magnanimous not to hold silent grudges - rather because it's pleasant not to be involved in reality. The dark recesses of our minds are the perfect temporal space. Maybe that's our image in the fourth dimension, but then that's a different topic.

Regarding the topic then, it's strange to find your words printed on any page, because that makes them definite. And you admonish yourself for being too hopeful or too pessimistic, or not insightful enough. The worst offense though, is that you aren't as clear-minded as you are in that non-temporal recess of your mind.

And then you tell yourself to not think about it too much, that it'll all be alright. Or not. Depends on your disposition.