Opinion Sur
It is said, and not without cause, that we must learn from the past in order not to make the same mistakes that were made; also, of course, to enrich ourselves with what has been achieved. But, that existential equation, that flowing of life and directionality, is also influenced by how we foresee the future and, very specifically, by the future we long for, by the one we are willing to work, to build, to fight for if it comes down to it.It is said, and not without cause, that we must learn from the past in order not to make the same mistakes that were made; also, of course, to enrich ourselves with what has been achieved. Who could deny the value of experience, what has been learned with successes and mistakes, with sorrows and joys? Furthermore, is it not our personal past, even those far spaces of childhood and adolescence what shaped who we are, our values, and the trajectory we have gone through? What would we be without that past; without the roots we emerge from; without the support of a personal and collective history? There is no doubt the past counts, carries weight, drives and limits, conditions our present and quite likely our future.
But, that existential equation, that flowing of life and directionality, is also influenced by how we foresee the future and, very specifically, by the future we long for, by the one we are willing to work, to build, to fight for if it comes down to it. That future that emerges in our minds and in our guts and hearts [[For those who claim the existence of neurons not only in the brain but also in the cardiac and the digestive system.]] , constitutes our referential utopia. A scenario of imagined life, one we yearn for, perhaps possible but unquestionably uncertain, that infiltrates our present adding itself to the process of facing and deciding the course of action. The word utopia refers to a transcendental transformation and the word referential that will serve as guide and orientation for strategic decisions and also everyday ones.
The present is therefore sustained by the past, which has been narrated to us, that we have personally experienced same as the future we foresee and that is outlined for us, although with very different levels of consciousness according to the philosophic-cultural context in which individuals and societies live in. This seems to be the case even when the relative degree in which the past and the future become present in our worldview and decision making may vary with the circumstances. In conservative phases of the social evolution the past will carry significant weight while the future will have greater influence in transformation phases.
It is said that the past is what has been, an unquestionable truth, but in fact it is not so. If the present reality itself with all the perceptive facilities it offers is extremely hard to unravel, know, understand, and therefore, gives way to very diverse interpretations, we can envisage how complex it would be to unravel and characterize the past, distant in time and submitted to the bias of extremely diverse and conditioned perspectives. The past is a temporal space in which the facts that come to us can barely outline what has happened and very few times are able to unequivocally express its genesis and functioning dynamic. This is well-known by historians, anthropologists, sociologists, psychoanalysts and economists that, in several degrees and modalities, capture with great effort those aspects of the past they manage to get a hold of which, more than once, are chosen according to the theories that sustain their quests.
Contradictorily the future, which by definition is a reality that has not yet been nor is, and in particular the referential utopia that serves us as reference to align present efforts and decisions, would not bring the same imprecision or the same shades of the past and neither of the present. The fact is that the vision of the expected future is built with the benefit of what is wanted, thus inconsistences, uncertainties and contradictions could be assessed and presumably ‘solved’ by the architects of processes and trajectories. However, as in every construction that involves humans, imperfections and questions too, inevitably, will be part of the process.
The construction of a referential utopia is a job of many although it may be expressed or presented by some. While conceiving it, we will move between two severe and dangerous extremes: on one hand the voluntarism that borders naivety and ignores the specific weight of the limitations that are present in any reality and, at the other end, the fatalism which sterilizes the creativity and the determination that blocks social and individual wills. A more realistic or promising path is the one we take on encouraged by a free though conditioned will. In that perspective, the desired transformation is made viable by unchaining energies and mobilizing wills at every step of the way but, still, there will be total or partially uncontrollable factors which would be disastrous not to consider.
Baring this in mind and as a conclusion for these lines it is in order to ask ourselves if there could be a coexistence in meaning between the ‘Let us be realistic, demand the impossible’, beautiful reminiscence of our youth, and another slightly more mature utopia that proposes ‘Let us be realistic, let us go for a transcendental and viable transformation’.
