Your Future is right...behind you!

‘You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.’ – Steve Jobs

Say, while on an evening stroll on the beach, your ankle feels a sudden thud and VIOLA, you've stumbled upon a seemingly antique lamp, with most certainly, a 1000 yr old Jinnie lingering in there somewhere. With no further ado, you summon the Jennie and impatiently wait for him to blurp out the inalienable question. The twist though, comes when our Jennie has clarified that he has fuel enough for 1 wish only! What would that wish be?

When asked the same question to a group of IT engineers, who are wired to think technically non-lenier, a resounding 76% of them went with 'the ability to see future events'. Why so?

With the ability to precisely predict where the next turn of the wheel would land, which team would win the next super bowl, when the next Nasdaq bull run would take place or how Mr. Trump's hairdo would look 10 years from now(wait, no special powers needed there - the wig stays as is), one would have enough powers to turn earth off its axis.

Can we hone such powers? To find answers to that one, lets first take a step back.

So often, we get transported to the time when day dreaming on the backbenches was almost a fancy job description. These were the times when fewer things, other than a teacher skipping her lecture, REALLY gave us the kick. And when one did make it to the dais, our eyes were glued onto the monosyllabic, almost inanimate flow of the lecture that ensued. The scientific fraternity is still divided on, what in their gnomes endowed our school teachers with such uniquely deranged personalities!

Some days were drab, but some others used to tag with it, a sensational event that etched itself in our memories for the rest of our life.

‘There are no do overs in life, bwaay!’, was one such sarcasm that Mr. Kutty our well-meaning, dorky Physics professor would throw at me whenever he noticed me peering out of the window pane. He sure was concerned about me missing notes from his precious discourse, but his nudge was more so about me missing out on the race of life itself.

Even today, when I blankly stare out of my balcony, seeking answers to my twisted questions on life, Mr. Kutty rings in my ears. Teachers and parents do every bit to ready us for the world at large, by sharing snippets of their experiences and learning, even some of their misadventures with us, keen to see us dodge those beamers when we are faced with one. And they do this, despite being totally aware that our journeys are going to be uniquely ridden with uncanny cross roads, as we will stand alone trying to figure the best way forward.

In Mr. Kutty’s words, there certainly are no ‘do-overs’! But why seek one, when each life experience, packs in itself so much learning and adventure complimentary. Isn’t that the center of our existence anyway? Experiencing what life has scripted in our kitty?

Humans have been very unique in their evolutionary manners. We have leap-frogged past all other species who set out at the same point as us. Given the same environment and conditions, we made it much farther than all other species put together. The one trait that made it all possible – Curiosity. Humans outclass every other kind when it comes to the art of inquiry.

For time immemorial, we have been drawn towards mysteries that surround us, within and without nature. Some, we deciphered through sheer calculus and some others via application of our senses to the object in question. What is left unaccounted for in the scientific realm, often finds a special space in our mystery seeking minds. Our minds are pathologically designed to ‘make meaning’ of our surroundings, decode it, generalize it and finally, give it a mould - a definition. But there are many things out there that we have not even come close to understanding, let alone master.

The quest for ‘seeing through time’ has been one such struggle (YES, we are getting closer to the point here!). Knowing our future has been of unquestionable intrigue to us; so much so, that many have staked their wealth, well-being and their ‘present’ in pursuit of the quintessential answer to – ‘What Lies Ahead’. In the past, a few enlightened men were able to uncover this secret, while multitudes have perished in their frenzy to decode the future. 

The irony though, is that, ones who got enlightened, then deserted their ego, and so, all their fears. In the absence of any fear, there is no anticipation of the future. The ignorant though, seek for guidance and solace from these enlightened souls. These days, bad name has been brought to this noble cohort, with tricksters donning their attire to dupe the rich and fearful. Fear trumps all, they say.

For seekers of knowledge though, nature has laid out alternatively, some cryptic answers that stay at arm’s length, and yet, require discovery. Intuition, is one such mystery that hits us with its brilliance to anticipate threats and events ahead of the actual occurrence, but mostly we are not in-charge as it happens. One would argue, if the unconscious nature of this action could be controlled, will it lend us the power to tell the future? Having met with no satisfactory answers to the question thus far, I have now given way to a new thought process. Something more simplified and generalized; just as our minds like it.

In our daily transactions, we bring a very smart trait to the table. Take notice of the heads of businesses who marinate themselves in data on past trends to arrive at the next fruitful course for their business. Anticipation of future trends stems from an insightful and methodical past trend analysis, rather than bizarre predictions, as was the case a few decades back.

Likewise, when it comes to decoding the future, a shift in approach is needed. Looking backward to past experiences, particularly, the monumental failures that were endured to get to this point, oftentimes gives out a very insightful pattern. These patterns give a glimpse of the working manual that Mother Nature operates through. The natural laws are very precise; to the degree that we can with utmost ease, time the exact moment a rocket will land on the moon. The chemical combinations that prevail in nature never disappoint, do they? 2 parts of Hydrogen and 1 part Oxygen will always produce water. No exceptions!

Knowing this one law, we have known everything. These patterns are all we need to decipher. Sometimes through our own experiences and better often through someone else’s, we can find traces of occurrences that led to or led us out of the past situations. All great leaders of our time have accredited their success to some of their famous failures. But when they say thus, they are actually hinting at their ability to trace back into time and decode these very patterns.

Oftentimes, these patterns hint at Mother Nature’s hidden agenda - to help us evolve. Sometimes at the level of the mind and yet other times that of our consciousness. And she does not relent until the lesson has been learnt.

Decoding the future is more so, an exercise in decoding the past, and it’s this lesson that trumps everything we have ever learnt!

 Do share your thoughts on the comments section below, as I learn more from exchange of ideas/experiences, than my own monologues. :)