Frank and Ernest by Thaves for May 06, 2020

confusing the visual with the temporal.

Hmmm… maybe if we turned around?

It’s like driving on the parkway and parking in the driveway!

The theological implications are staggering …

Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you…

yesterday’s gone, and tomorrow may never come, cherish the moments today.

It helps if one pays attention to events that happened in the past to get at least some idea of how to handle current and future probabilities.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Georges Santayana (c. 1905) [With appreciation to Wikipedia and Google.]

It’s like my parents and teachers always said: we’ve got eyes in the back of our heads.

We think we see the past clearly, but our hearts and minds have agendas that put a filter of one kind or another on it, and usually we’re never the wiser. Stick with today, which is much more manageable. :-)

Over time, Frank and Ernie have groan on me.

If you could see the future we would either be bored spit-less going along mindlessly, OR petrified in terror.Of course seeing the future would let us know whether we have free will, or everything is predestined. But that’s not a benefit I need.

In classical Greece, they imagined the future behind them and the past in front!

Umm…It’s more fun reliving your past mistakes than imagining all the ones you’re about to make? Wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise, wouldja?

Or you could just live backward, like Merlin!

That’s because the Past is fixed while the Future is of infinite possible outcomes. But at least you’re finally in the Present where changes in direction can occur.

So the real question is do we keep charging headlong down the path to extinction or do we make the conscious choice to save ourselves and the Future generations.

Seeing and remembering are two different things.. short of a picture one can not see the past

Amen to that, F & E!!! But only if we could somehow have the benefit of what we’ve already learned to apply to our future and make it better, both for us and our loved ones.

The ancient Semitic worldview was that we are floating on our back on the slow river of Time. We can see where we’ve been and are heading away from it, so the distant past is hard to make out. Our destination is behind us, out of sight. We can see to either side reasonably well and guess at the immediate future.

The problem with the future is that it often becomes the present.