Chaos Theory

Nov 12 2013

The trouble with history

is we know how it turned out.

We read the past

through the lens of inevitability,

with the smugness of now

harshly judge

they’re lack of vision.

What could they possibly have been thinking?

should not be merely rhetorical.

Because this

is what we need to know

if we are to learn anything;

their world-view,

their innocence, and ignorance

and utter certainty.

If only we studied history, said Santayana

we would not be condemned

to repeat it.

But then, when we do go back

we end up fighting the last war;

drowning in rat-filled trenches,

protecting the Negro

from himself.

As if there was such a thing as “the past”,

when there are many, and you choose your own.

Every nation, creed, and tribe

writing, and re-writing

their own revered version,

a history of victory, humiliation, and pride

and carefully nursed grievance.

The definite article

does not apply.

But for all of them

it was better, back then,

when life were simple

and purposes clear;

memory’s rough edges

sanded down.

While how troubled

the state of the world

here and now,

the bias of recency,

when it’s always a crisis

and we always inhabit

exceptional times.

For millennia

there was no future.

When we trusted in providence, not progress,

and life went on, much as it had  –

birthing and dying, working the land,

as did our forbears

and theirs, before them.

And if “the past” is a lie

then so is “the future”.

Because there are infinite futures,

that, like parallel worlds

exist at once.

So we proclaim “the future”

then all head off

helter-skelter

in different directions,

so sure of ourselves.

As if cause and effect

were perfectly linear,

the future

a straight line from now.

But destiny changes

each fork in the road,

and there is no proportion

of cause.

Like a butterfly’s wings

the 100 year storm,

an asteroid

plunging from orbit.