Future tense, Present imperfect

Past is an era of regrets, Present barely satisfying so Future is where all the good things are.

Future is made of sunshine and laughter. Future is where loneliness is a mere memory. Future is the fantasyland of healed wounds and faded scars. Future is an adobe of hopes, dreams and promises.

Unlike Past, that cannot be changed and Present, that cannot be tamed, we wield astonishing control over the Future. Future is predictable, meticulously planned and executed to perfection, or so we would like to believe.

But Future cannot stay in that Utopic state forever for one day it will arrive upon us amidst all the clamor and anticipation, and when that happens, it ceases to be Future, the place that we had so revered and becomes Present, the reality that we had utterly dreaded. That Present becomes inescapable. Reality triumphs over Fantasy, yet again. And all that preparation, carefully constructed with expectations over time, collapses in a matter of moments.

But that hardly dissuades us. As the clock gets reset, a new Future is born from the ashes of the previous one, a Future that is much superior to all its predecessors in both expectations and promises. There is still a hint of uncertainty, palpable tension in the air, but that is soon overcome and the path to a perfect Future starts to take shape.

Will this new Future be able to do justice to all that it promises? Only Time can tell and let us wait, till the eternity, until Future breathes its last breath.

The Past. The Present. The Future (Le passé. Le présent. L'avenir), from La Caricature, plate 349 by Honoré Daumier. Source: www.metmuseum.org