The Future Problem
Why might the Dark Side prey on our superpower of future vision?
Why would the Devil want human beings focused on the future? What’s so bad about thinking ahead? A valid question from my daughter as we were reading C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters, a fictional tome wherein the reader is observing two demons pen-paling about how to win the souls of human beings. It’s a must-read.
BTW…Geeky Stoics’ next book club is on The Screwtape Letters. Sign up here if you’re interested.
In reading Screwtape, I found it hard not to fixate all the corollaries with what we talk about on Geeky Stoics. I want to connect the dots here between Screwtape, Star Wars, The 3 Body Problem, and Meditations.
In Letter VI of Screwtape, the similarly named demon writes,
“We want him (the human) to be in the maximum uncertainty, so that his mind will be filled with contradictory pictures of the future, every one of which arouses hope or fear. There is nothing like suspense and anxiety for barricading a human's mind against the Enemy (God). He wants men to be concerned with what they do; our business is to keep them thinking about what will happen to them.”
Something about God, or peace itself, is found in the present moment according to C.S. Lewis. He goes on to say that the human being, in our desire to run from “Thy will be done” prefer to fixate on future eventualities, thus giving themselves agency, responsibility, and power to affect outcomes.
I know I do this. Habitually. More on that here.
The natural human desire for control is the source of our anxiety, lots of inner suffering, and at worst, incredible evil.
Marcus Aurelius wrote in Meditations about anxiety,
“Today I escaped anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions — not outside.”
Because he knew what Lewis would know over a thousand years later, which is that our anxiety is not produced by external factors (debt, romance, climate change) but by how we choose to relate to those things. Dealing with anxiety is as much a matter of medication as it is sustainable healthy habits and mental fortifications.
Still, I don’t know instinctively why Satan or his demons would prefer a future focus in humans. After all, planning for the future is quite literally why we've thrived for so long. In strictly evolutionary terms, it’s why we’re top dog. Every other creature of the world plans for today. Tomorrow doesn’t exist to them, as far as we can tell.
I pay for security devices on my home because I think about tomorrow. I shop at Costco sometimes, because I’m thinking about next week.
So where is the geeky in all of this? Star Wars has always had something to say about this problem.
Obi-Wan Kenobi:
I have a bad feeling about this.Qui-Gon Jinn:
I don't sense anything.Obi-Wan:
It's not about the mission, Master. It's something... elsewhere. Elusive.Qui-Gon:
Don't center on your anxieties, Obi-Wan. Keep your concentration here and now, where it belongs.Obi-Wan:
But Master Yoda said I should be mindful of the future.Qui-Gon:
But not at the expense of the moment. Be mindful of the living Force, young Padawan.
Is Qui-Gon suggesting one shouldn’t be aware of or prepared for the future? No. He’s more specific than that. “But not at the expense of the moment” implies a necessity to do both. We don’t look back kindly on people in history who turned a blind eye to what was coming around the corner. We call them arrogant and their actions those of hubris.
Be aware. Be informed. But a neglect of the present is inexcusable.
Or perhaps it’s not just neglect, such as ignoring playtime with your family in favor or scrolling Zillow for a bigger house you don’t actually need (envy), maybe it’s the whole “ends justifying the means” element of this.
What dark actions might we be willing to take in service of the good ol’ “greater good” in an imagined future?
Think about Anakin Skywalker’s descent into Hell. He didn’t just murder countless innocents for the knowledge to “conquer death” and save Padme, he also was motivated by a distrust of the Jedi Order and Republic. He wanted the Empire that Palpatine was promising, where there’d be “peace and justice”.
To get there, a violent purge would first have to take place. “Do what must be done, Lord Vader,” Palpatine tells him.
“Peace” through Murder, “Justice” through Lawlessness”
The future, I suppose, is what allows us to make certain justifications for things we know are wrong. Even a sin of sex or drink is rooted in a future view. The lust and fixation are not without burden.
The drink isn’t the sin. It’s the desire for drunkenness. Sexual impropriety is of course a sin on its own, but the human being is driven to it in search of the ending (you know what I mean?). The part that feels so good. By that time, it’s already over. The future fooled you, yet again.
C.S. Lewis adds in Letter XV,
In a word, the Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity. It is the most completely temporal part of time — for the Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays. Hence the encouragement we have given to all those schemes of thought such as Creative Evolution, Scientific Humanism, or Communism, which fix men's affections on the Future, on the very core of temporality. Hence nearly all vices are rooted in the future. Gratitude looks to the past and love to the present; fear, avarice, lust, and ambition look ahead. Do not think lust an exception. When the present pleasure arrives, the sin (which alone interests us) is already over.
If “utopia” or “heaven on earth” is actually possible, who wouldn’t want to help bring it about? I can almost hear the chants of the Maoist revolutionaries depicted in Netflix’s “3 Body Problem”, proclaiming “revolution is righteous” and “rebellion is just”.
‘Off with their heads’ is what they’re really saying. “They” are anyone standing in the way of an imagined future without academia, Western influence or God. They’ll call it paradise.
I’ve gone on far longer than I planned with this installment of Geeky Stoics. So I’ll wrap it up for today, with a promise to revisit these ideas at a later date.
I suppose what I want you to remember as you begin the weekend is what Yoda told Luke Skywalker in The Empire Strikes Back,
“Always in motion the future is.”
You’ve got things on your plate, things in the future that got you stressed out. Fair enough. Me too. But don’t lose sight of how your actions in the present matter and impact those you love most.
If your visions of the future have you treating people badly in the present, something is wrong there. Open your eyes to it. You’ll be shocked at how freeing it is. Let go wherever you can stomach it. And maybe even let go where you can’t comprehend it.
Let me know what you think about this. What is the problem with being overly focused on the future? I’d love your input.
Have a great weekend.
