Off the Cuff / My Other Journal

The Future? Why Should I Wish to Know It?

Whichever form knowing of the future--in other words fortune telling—takes, similarity in processes is the same, as people seek meanings in random patterns and phenomena. I believe it is the human brain that creates meaning out of nothing. This doesn't say much about our brains and thinking, but us having faulty brains is a fact for me.

I think, assuming to know the future is a ridiculous and hilarious concept, since what the fortune-tellers, even those using the same methods, say varies, or their predictions are, most of the time, totally opposite. My question is: If any of the methods really worked in the past, why are there so many methods, such as phrenology, palm reading, tea leaves, numerology, astrology, etc? And what about all the doomsayers and Cassandras? Why do they want us to jump into a dismal future?

Most of us seek to know the future even though we sense we are chasing after false hope or false titillation. And heaven forbid, if one of the so-called prophetic predictions hit the mark. Then, we think, all of the rest are legitimate. Like I said earlier, this is one of the idiosyncrasies of the human brain.

In addition, there are the futurists who try to predict the future by basing their studies on past and current events or trends. As scientific as they think they are, they, too, fail most of the time. Those who invest in the stock market and heed the trend readers also lose, and sometimes, they lose big. I am sure most of us who came into a little money still feel that bitter taste on our tongues.

Thus, even if knowing the future were to be possible, I’d opt not to know it. For one thing, any indication of negativity in my future would ruin the present for me. It took me a long time to learn how to live in the now, and I am not giving that up, after so much work I put in it.

Still all this serious talk I’ve laid on you doesn’t prevent me from making a prediction myself.

I am predicting, or rather, I know for certain that I’ll die one day, and our planet and the solar system, and even our galaxy, the Milky Way, will end…at one unknown time. Just that my oracles did not let me know when…

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Prompt: If you were given a chance to know what happens in your future, would you take it?