Does The Future Actually Hold Anything?
The future is defined as: coming after the present time, but that isn’t enough for us. We are infatuated with the whole concept of the future and what it holds. But does the future actually hold anything? Many believe that our future is already predetermined therefore it doesn’t matter what one does for their future. Either way they will find themselves with the same final outcome, destroying any possibility of will-free. One’s future is a road and it’s up to the driver to decide the turns. One can’t label the road as either determinism or free will because of the complexity of social class, ethnicity and religion, one can’t control these; but without effort you will go no where. Robert Frost presents the relationship the best way possible “In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.”
Robert Frost’s quote: “it goes on” is translated in Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five to “So it goes”. Frost’s quote can be translated however you would like it to, but Vonnegut’s quote that life will go on in spite of our efforts. In Slaughterhouse Five, the main character, Billy Pilgrim is confronted by aliens who teach him their ideals. One of the ideals being “So it goes” ; which in its simplest form means life will continue and there’s nothing you can do to change it. Throughout the book Billy doesn’t place any effort into the war, his beliefs, his marriage, or standing up for himself because he already knows his fate. On page 98, the Englishmen explain to Billy that the coat given to him is an insult; “It was deliberate attempt to humiliate you. You mustn’t let Jerry do things like that...Billy Pilgrim swooned.” Billy believes there is nothing he can do about it. Billy faces challenges he wants nothing to be a part of but refusing to do anything. This is why the book is satiric. Anyone with the right mind that knows their future will do anything to change it for the better. Sitting there and just taking it like Billy did is a terrible outcome. He shows no character what so whatever. Not only could of Billy prevented his death but stood up for what he believed in. He lacks the effort to make a difference in his own life. That is like me knowing that if I stop typing right here….I will get an F and I know I will so I may as well stop.
That’s just not the outcome I want therefore i’ll continue this essay. All it takes is some effort to change the outcome. In Stephen Hawking’s Is Everything Determined, Hawking talks a lot about Natural Selection. Hawking says “Most errors would have been fatal to the survival of the organism or its ability to reproduce….Thus they would tend to replace the original, unimprovement organisms.” Those who do not put in the effort to have the best ability to survive in life; won’t. The species with the best genes, they have developed, will have their genes continued through their generations. Take the Dodo bird for example a flightless, 3.3 feet tall and weighed around 10–18 kg. They are excinent for a reason. The Dodo doesn’t have the qualities to survive now because some point in life they became fine with how the way they were. Effort will be the decider on how the outcome turns out. No one with just luck has become a millionaire. Although in the book Outliers, Malcom Gladwell writes about how certain people like Bill Gates were handed their future. Gates was lucky enough to be able to have computer time, when computer time was rare, and continuously work on them. Not many people were able to get computer time during his era. Therefore his life was set because of time. Gladwell over looks the amount of effort Gates gave in order to be where he is now. Gates would work on the computer for long period of time and stay up all night. A handful of people at Gates’s university could have the same outcome as Gates but no one worked as hard as he did. One will always reach the final outcome but on what the outcome is can only be created on your own.
Take this essay for example again, no matter what I do I will receive a grade for this. That is the outcome. I can’t change that at all. What I am able to change is what kind of grade I receive. In 1997, I lost my father because of a drive by incident. I can’t change the fact I am fatherless. The big picture is that I will live a fatherless life, that has already been determined for me. No one knows how I will react to being fatherless or how successful I can be because of it. They’re of course stereotypes but I chose not to follow those. Of course, I don’t know the final outcome of my life yet but I know eventually I’ll have to reach it. In Slaughterhouse five, we knew Billy was eventually going to have to die. The way he died was his choice because of the fact he chose not to control it. He couldn’t control the fact that eventually one has to pass away but dying the way he did was up to him.
Life is a car ride and we’re the ones driving. How fast or slow you want to go is completely up to you but that final destination of death won’t escape us. How you lived your life is completely up to you. One has the ability to fill, life with the details. To answer the of does the future actually hold anything?; the answer is yes it does but its up to one to decide what it is holding. Whether one decides that life is determinism or free will just realize that, “it goes on”.