Delphic Maxim 40: Foresee the future
I’ve set myself the challenge of responding to each Delphic Maxim for 15 minutes a day.
40. Foresee the future
The maxims I’ve been responding to for the last eight weeks were carved around the outside of the Temple at Delphi. In that temple, the Pythia would act as an oracle, seeing the future, the present, the characters and purposes of people from all over the Greek world. For thousands of years humans have wanted to foresee the future — to have a sense of our destiny, the forks and bends in the winding path that carries us through life.
Of course destiny itself — at least a predictable destiny — implies that we are fated to do things. I’m not sure I subscribe to that view. Things are still unfolding, destiny is unwritten but prospects and possibilities are written each day while others are circumscribed by our choices. So it’s quite natural that we wish we could foresee the future, but also unnatural and impossible that we could do it with any real accuracy (at least at the level of contingency — we can’t see the crazy, unexpected, black swan events that might effect our lives. We can obviously predict fairly accurately when the bus will arrive, unless you get the 370 in Sydney).
So if we can’t actually foresee the future, what good is a maxim like this? Well, I think in part it’s about preparing for and possibly even anticipating the future. Being strategic has come up earlier in these writings, and that’s also a big part of our sense of foresight. Strategic thinking, when it manifests in its forward thinking mode, involves not only looking at the advantages and abilities that we have in life, but also planning how they might be used to confront and exploit the circumstances that we predict we will find ourselves in. A good strategist will also anticipate, or at least reduce exposure to, the kinds of super damaging black swans — unexpected, catastrophic events — and try to create possibilities for positive black swans — potent boons and massive gains.
Thinking ahead isn’t just about being forewarned or having knowledge — it’s pointless if you don’t put that knowledge into practice. The scenario we face today is quite different to those stories that come down from the time of the Pythia. When the oracle predicted the tragic tale of Oedipus, she set in motion the events that led to the deaths of Oedipus’ father, his mother/wife Jocasta and Oedipus’ exile itself. A self-fulfilling prophecy is a dangerous thing, but fortunately we lack the ability to actually foresee the future — we can only anticipate and work with probabilities.
The lesson from this maxim is fairly straightforward: don’t roll blindly from one moment to the next, but take the time to look forward and see what is on the horizon of our days. It isn’t necessary to predict everything, or even to be constantly giving consideration to the future (that would take us so far out of the present that we would likely achieve nothing, and then we’re trapped again with plenty of foresight but no strategy). But a little foresight and some thoughtful planning can at least help inoculate us against time’s harsher shocks and shudders.
