The Future

Here's an interesting thought: you ever notice that things seldom occur the way you envision them? In fact, twisting words a little, mapping out a future event in your imagination seems to greatly reduce the chances that it will happen in that way, doesn't it? It's happened to me so many times. If there's a future event coming up that gets me tossing and turning at night in dread, conjuring up the worst things that could happen, things seldom go that bad. Unfortunately, it works the other way too; whenever I daydream about just the perfect way I'd like something to happen, the damn thing will never happen that way.

Of course, there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for it that lies hidden in dusty tomes of probability, perception and our own expectations. But a) what's the fun in explaining it away? and b) that doesn't change the fact that it still works. I've given some of my best exams and reviews when I'm dreading them, kneading out different things that could go wrong. In fact, maybe this is the reason that unrequited love often remains unrequited, and even if one gets whom one pines for, there is much frustration in life. If you've already spent a lifetime of beautiful moments with your beloved in the fertile lands of your mind, you've eliminated the possibility of ever living that life in the real world.

All this is a play on words, of course, but the great writer Jorge Luis Borges takes it to an extreme in one of his stories. The main character is due to be shot in a few days. In his desperation, he imagines the worst emotions and suffering he could possibly have, thinking that by doing so, he's eliminating the chances of them ever happening! Unfortunately, by doing so, Borges' character falls victim to another demon of the human psyche: paranoia.