Through the looking glass?
Whilst the object of a stoics awareness is always in the present and action by it's very nature can only have an effect on the present. That does not mean that the future is ignored by the stoic, we do look forwards, but we recognize that we are not looking at reality except through the distorting lens of the looking glass. The lens of future prediction unavoidably includes ourselves, our hopes and sense of who we are, what our point of view is and how our society talks about itself. We can not have an idea until someone else exposes us to them, and we certainly can not have a balanced self-made view without the views of those we disagree with, where there is no contrast, there is no counter point and no possibility of growth and change.
If everything was settled, there could be no progress, we would have reached our destination and it would be the end of our journey and no more adventures or growth, and I for one enjoy growing as a being of consciousness it is the thing that brings me joy. There is a huge list of things I do not know, and it is probably (definitely) dwarfed by the things that I think I know but I am actually wrong about. I have form, I have been wrong many times before, however in the long run each time that I found I was wrong, it was the source of my greatest joys and growth (once the pride had pasted). Which means having to listen to a lot of people I think is a little, mostly or almost totally wrong, and it is the greatest gift to yourself and others to be able to listen to someone who almost entirely offends you and still find the bridge, the thing that you share, the connection that was waiting to be found.
For some reason, there is something that people prefer to share instead, a connection based on the difference between our tribes, more than anything else it is that difference between “us and them”. That famous group of people, that all of us do not like, the “them” that show us what we share. In the age of disconnection, there are less ways for you to find your tribe, as such we look in even more detail for reasons to declare that there are others who are the “them”. There are always differences between every individual, that is why the word exist, we know we are one because we have never met anyone the same, and the world is scary and wonderful because of it. That is why we seek the comfort of our family and more so in the modern world our self selected tribe, the ones we chose to join, anti, pro, isms of all kinds, that is where we put our energy, and you can guarantee that wherever you put your energy, that will become the largest problem in the world and the source of your identity. You will be a warrior, priest, farmer, druid, thinker for your tribe (god forbid, even the writer for your point of view), you find your purpose and act out your role, and there is nothing wrong with this.
It feels good to be on a mission on behalf of your tribe, but that does require you to ask the question, what would the world look like if we succeed totally, do not worry, you never will. Humans are just too diverse and contrary to ever all agreed, there are just too many power plays that can be played, there are too many opportunities for individual gain in being in opposition, we divide because of that divergence of interest between the group and the self. To be just a little naughty, always has an advantage to someone, especially when everyone is being good, when one person breaks the rule, there is no real social cost, it is let go and ignored. It is almost exactly the reason that evolution happen, DNA being a little naughty, not making an exact copy but making a mistake or giving themselves an advantage.
We are meant to experiment, take risks, listen to the views that you shouldn't, there is a value in being a rebel, in state of anarchy, the deliberate breaking of rules, not doing what everyone else is, there is an advantage in being naughty and not getting caught. If enough people do so, you can create a revolution, when idea become contaminate to old one dimensional thinking, like a virus it can swept the world and change it. Whilst we might find the idea that the world is flat is foolish, if you had never heard of the idea that it was round, why would you come up with it on your own. From a practical point of view it does not really change anything about your everyday experience, it does not make a difference to your walk to the pub if it is a straight line, or very slight curve, it certainly will not be on the way home. It is only when you become exposed to the idea, that it becomes a possibility, a choice of options, between the two, before that there was only one idea and no reason or point to change it.
However once you know the world is round, the phrase it all comes around makes more sense, we are interconnected, we are all on a tiny lifeboat in a vast ocean of space, it is amazing that we exist when we see the world as it is, when we have a photograph of that world (the first is only fifty year old) and there is no getting away from that fact. We now have a mental image of our world, we have an alien point of view of ourselves, and yet we still act like we are in a tiny tribe, not a world of one against that vast darkness, one which we could sink back into, so easily that it is terrifying to comprehend, that most of us don't, even whose who understand it.
If we did we could not spend so much time, hating, cancelling, ruining members of our own tribe without the illusion that we are a million little tribes, there would not need to such fear, we are one family with many opinions and a moaning grandfather that we all share. That is fine and the way of things, to be an imperfect family is good enough, the trouble only comes when it becomes fatally split, that is when it all goes wrong, and to prevent it we need tolerance, the acceptance that others can be wrong and we should mind our own business and let them get on with the business of finding that out, as we have to find out all the ways that we are wrong too, and that is greatest equality we all deserve.
There are many paths to such a future, it is only by looking through the looking glass that we can guess where our patterns of thoughts, beliefs, hopes will lead and how possible it ready is, we might not get it right but it can warn of the ways we definitely do not want to tread. The greatest guide we have is always whether a general idea causes harm to individuals, even when you do not like that person, because harm always causes more harm until someone changes the pattern, the wheel of harm, so do not be the one who adds to the momentum of harm in the world, look forward that looking glass and examine the future for harm, as the doctors swear, first do no harm, it is a higher standard than you think.
