The Future is Called Perhaps

I came across the quote in the image above some years ago. Here it is in its entirety, just for context:

The future is called “perhaps,” which is the only possible thing to call the future. And the important thing is not to allow that to scare you.

The quote comes from the introduction to Tennessee Williams’ play Orpheus Descending–an introduction fittingly called “The Past, the Present, and the Perhaps.” In Williams’ own words, Orpheus Descending is a play about “unanswered questions that haunt the hearts of people and the difference between continuing to ask them…and the acceptance of prescribed answers that are not answers at all.”

I’ve always been a big question-asker. I drove my parents crazy with questions, when I was a kid. I’m pretty sure this is why my mother was willing to let me spend unsupervised hours at a time in the Boise Public Library. Probably she was hoping I’d find my answers and leave her be.

Those hours at the library are most likely where I learned to be an academic, which is basically a person who makes her living by asking questions. But one thing you learn very early on in the academic world is that most questions don’t have definite answers. You have to make your peace with this. You have to get very comfortable with phrasings like “It’s possible that . . .” and “Perhaps we should view this as an example of . . .”

This doesn’t mean you don’t know what you’re talking about. On the contrary–it means you’re smart enough to know every answer has limitations.

Even an esteemed colleague in the Biology department at my university says “Science doesn’t ‘prove facts.’ Science tells us what a preponderance of the evidence suggests right now.”

In other words, even in science, there are no right answers–only answers that are right for the moment.

I think it’s healthy for us to make room for multiple answers to our questions as we live our lives, rather than devoting all our energy to setting specific goals and developing action plans. Whatever strategies we devise today are based on the information we have at hand; even a small change in that information can make a huge difference. Throw in a big question and the whole plan might go right out the window. And all your strategizing will go with it.

Wait a minute, you’re thinking. This is the woman who writes about setting a course for your future self, and design thinking, and following through on your goals.

Indeed I am. But as I write this, I’m on the cusp of changes that are going to shape my life in ways I hadn’t anticipated. That means I am also the woman who’s being reminded that the future is called perhaps because we can never be too certain about what’s up ahead–no matter how organized and goal-oriented we might be.

Human intelligence is limited. The sand is always shifting underneath our feet. What we think we know for sure today might seem untrue tomorrow. Our view into the next few years–just like our view out any window–shifts every time we make the smallest move.

It’s so easy to forget that. For me, anyway, it’s easy to start thinking of life in very linear terms: if I just do X and Y, then certainly I’ll get to Z.

Except maybe not. Maybe I’ll have a serious accident somewhere between Y and Z, making it difficult or impossible to reach that goal. Maybe I’ll get sick somewhere between X and Y, and by the time I’m healthy enough to even think about Y, maybe I’ll have to start over with X again. And maybe X will be totally different than it used to be, so I’ll have to learn how to do it in a new way.

And maybe, once I’ve done all that, I’ll realize that I don’t really even want Z anymore, because Z isn’t what it used to be. Or because I’m no longer the person who wanted Z to begin with.

Rather than being afraid of the unknown–which is the one sure thing, in this human world–Williams encourages us to face it without fear. The future is uncertain for everyone. That means we’re all in the craziness together, which makes it a little less scary.

All any of us can do is move toward what we want and know that this might change. Or, rather, that it probably will change–but we can change, too. We can ask new questions, get new answers. We can come up with a different view of the perhaps. Not a more accurate one, necessarily, but a view that better suits the moment.

The most dangerous thing we can do is quiet our fears with answers that aren’t answers at all–empty platitudes like It just wasn’t meant to be and Everything happens for a reason. I think we all know, somewhere in our hearts, that those are simply variations on the theme of I give up. 

But when we start thinking of the future as a pre-determined scenario that’s simply unfolding in front of us, we stop thinking of ourselves as the agents of its creation. And the truth is, we do create the future. We do that over and over again–every single time we speculate on what might happen if, perhaps, we’re brave enough to face the uncertainty ahead.