The future

At first I thought yes, for sure! This was because I would then know if any of my career aspirations take place. Would I be a respected writer working for several interesting publications and having a great time working at my own pace? Would I be a qualified CELTA English teacher working abroad in Eastern Europe of South-East Asia? Would I be a cultural heritage technician, working with historical agencies and NGOs across the country and the world to create new and exciting exhibitions and insights into history?

After all this fantasising I eventually opted for no, but it was a heard choice. Simply put, the nature of time may make knowing the future too disruptive. What if I saw that I did fulfil one of several of my dreams in the future. I would then spend all my time either waiting for the events that take me there to happen, and miss them, or look everywhere for how to ensure I reach the future divined for me, and miss everything else.

Conversely, if I saw a less than ideal future ahead of me, would I take steps to avoid it, only to find that I unwittingly led to my sorry older self through my actions and events beyond my control.

Being able to see the future assumes that fate has already divined a future for you. Before taking the plunge and seeing what was in store for me I would have to know if what I saw was my future based on my life now, or my future no matter what. If it was the former I would be happy to see it as it would either let me know I am on the right track or that I need some adjustments.

However I cannot fathom how this would be the case because this vision of the future would require the diviner to have knowledge of every decision I am likely to make or have made, every path I am currently on my way down, how likely I am to fail or succeed at every activity, character trait, and every outcome of every situation based on a million different variables, most of which are locked up inside my head. This seems unlikely, even if I suspend my disbelief enough to accept that my future can be seen ahead of time. Even ifit were possible it would only be a statistical probability, not certainty.

So the other option is what fate has allotted to me. The one of infinite possible futures that the dice will definitely land on. The possibility of this being the case is not out of the question as without knowing your future you don't know if anything you do is progressing you towards it or not, and so cannot take steps to change your fate. So, once you know of this fate, how far will the fabric of time bend before it is ruptured.

A very good Terry Pratchett novel called Night Watch deals with this issue in an interesting way. It involves two characters being transported through time by a freak accident which eventually turns out to be Time's way of ensuring things happen, or appear to be happening, in just the right way to ensure that the present is exactly as it is. One of the characters disrupts history but the Time knows that the other will be able to fill in the gap and keep history on the allotted path, even if he does so unknowingly.

So, transferring this idea to our future, would my attempts to change the vision of my fate simply result in events that put things back as they were? Or would history shift to accommodative my prior knowledge of my fate and my new found ability to break out. Would time/fate be able to handle that? Or is the plan so intricate and so delicate that one card out of place brings the whole house crashing down? What would that involve, would the universe collapse because of me deciding not to take one job over another because I know which I am destined to take? I highly doubt it.

I believe firmly that there is no plan or fate for the reasons I have outlined above, what ever you choose to do, say, think, decide or not do, wherever you go or don't do, whoever you meet or don't meet, is all filling out your life wht all the necessary components for fulfilment and happiness, sometimes it is hard and sometimes happiness doesn't seem to be the end goal of the situation you have found yourself in, but you will likely see it in perspective once you are out the other end.

Whenever my plans change last minute, or something happens that I know wouldn't have happened had I done something different weeks before, I don't think fate, I think that every where is a path to be walked down and everything has an opportunity, however small, within it. We are all sums of our experiences throughout life, as well as some genetic predispositions, and if you are happy, why wonder about what could have happened or what was destined before that big event changed everything. Just live it. If you aren't happy, just change it, it can be that easy.