It is a pretense for me to say what I will do. A conversation with a close friend last evening reminded me that it would be untrue for me to say what future role I might play or take in someone else’s life.
It would be equally untrue and a mistake for me to rely on what pretense they might make of promising what they will do in the future. I want it to be enough for me and others to be totally present, anchored, immersed in the here and now. I do not want to live in a pretense of what the future might be.
This is not easy. It is often reassuring to tell someone that I will be always at their side. They might tell me the same. However, I think that reassurance is false and a big pretend. Better that I put my energy and attention into what is happening right now. That interaction is at least close to being real.
Dealing with the fundamental ambiguity and uncertainty of life is a constant challenge. I don’t want to rely on a pretend future. I want to rely on what I think is happening right now. I want to be able to spend time with someone, slowly unfolding and opening our hearts to one another. I want to pay attention to what is immediately in front of me and not be staring beyond the headlights, trying to see what cannot be seen. It should be enough that we put our focus and attention on the convergence, the relationship that is now.
I am aware that the words I use affect the way I think. Someone wants to set up a meeting in March. It would be a pretense to predict the future, so I do not say “I will be there.” Instead I say “I intend to be at the meeting.” I hear myself correctly say what is happening right now, not pretending to predict what I will do in a couple of months. There is no future that I can correctly or reliably disclose.
I hear people making marriage or relationship promises to one another and I cringe. They must be pretending, otherwise they would acknowledge that their good intentions have an uncertain likelihood of being fruitful. Better to say what they are experiencing and deeply feeling at the moment rather than making pretend predictions of an unpredictable future. Many of us have built our lives around such shaky promises and pretenses, then been deeply disappointed and wounded when things don’t go as promised.
For me, this issue of not living in the pretense of a future is unresolved, but I am working on it. While I try to plan wisely for the future, I also try not to live there. I try not to allow my feelings to be guided by frequent thoughts of what will happen days and months from now. I try not to put too much energy into paying attention to a pretend future.
In practice, that means paying attention to today as much as I can and not paying too much attention to next week. I want to be very focused on what is going on right now, and I seem to be slowly escaping the pretense of being in the future. I am slowly improving my ability to pay attention to what is happening now without keeping an eye on the uncertain future. After all, any awareness of my future is nothing but a pretense.