Complex Numbers

Past and Future Intents

I've lined Aeon articles in here before. This seems to be an affiliated site, Psyche. Apparently, someone loves Ancient Greek.

    How to do mental time travel  
Feeling overwhelmed by the present moment? Find a connection to the longer view and a wiser perspective on what matters

Bullshit sense... tingling!

But let's give this a chance.

You have a remarkable talent – the ability to step outside the present, and imagine the past and future in your mind’s eye.

Hey, you know what else you can imagine? Things that never happened, places that don't exist, and impossible scenarios. It's a rather important ability for fiction writers. Or city planners.

Some people apparently don't have the capability for visualization, while others can experience it more vividly. But I think it's fair to say most people have some ability to imagine.

Known as ‘mental time-travel’, some psychologists propose it’s a trait that allowed our species to thrive.

Well, at least this is the polar opposite of the "staying in the present moment" crap that's been circulating. I'll give it that.

If I ask you to imagine what you did yesterday, or what you’re planning for tomorrow, you can conjure up rich scenes in the theatre of your mind.

Well. Some of us can. I doubt the author intended to be ableist, but this is a bit like saying, "If I ask you to walk a mile, you can get up and walk a mile," ignoring or forgetting that paraplegics exist.

In the accelerating, information-rich, target-driven culture of the early 21st century, the present often dominates thoughts and priorities instead.

And some people seem to want to make "the present" the only priority.

We need to be present-minded sometimes. However, too much focus on the ‘now’ can also lead to the kind of harmful short-termism that infuses business, politics and media – a near-term perspective that worsens many of the long-term challenges we face this century, such as the climate crisis.

I can't really disagree with that. I've said similar things. Whether we can visualize things or not, we can learn from the past and make plans for the future, and both of those things are important.

But it’s also compounded by a host of unhelpful human habits and biases too, such as our ‘present bias’, whereby we tend to prioritise short-term rewards over long-term benefits (the classic example is the marshmallow test, in which some children can’t resist eating a single treat now, rejecting the chance to chomp two later on).

Yeah... that might not be the best example   to quote.

A longer view provides a deeper, richer awareness of how we fit into the human story – and the planet’s – and reveals just how fortunate you are to be here, right now. The geologist Marcia Bjornerud calls this perspective ‘timefulness’.

I'm not sure I like that name any more than I like its apparent inspiration, mindfulness.

Why a geologist gets to weigh in at all should be obvious: they generally cultivate a real sense of deep time, working as they do with rocks that sometimes predate eukaryotic life.

In this Guide, I’ll share practical tips and exercises that can help you escape the unwanted, short-termist distractions of the present, and discover the upsides of a longer time perspective.

The author proceeds to do just that, and at length. I don't think I need to copy anything else; if you're interested, go to the link (hopefully it won't rot anytime soon). I will note, however, that he does turn back to "mindfulness" at one point in there.

As for my bullshit sense, well, jury's still out for me. I tend to distrust pop psychology (for example, the marshmallow study, above), though that doesn't mean it's all bullshit. But right now, I have plans for the rest of the day because, no, I don't live in the present.