Cease to inquire what the future has in store, and to take as a gift whatever the day brings forth.
[Lat., Quid sit futurum cras, fuge quaerere: et
Quem Fors dierum cunque dabit, lucro
Appone.]
What we see as death, empty space, or nothingness is only the trough between the crests of this endlessly waving ocean. It is all part of the illusion that there should seem to be something to be gained in the future, and that there is an urgent necessity to go on and on until we get it. Yet just as there is no time but the present, and no one except the all-and-everything, there is never anything to be gained - though the zest of the game is to pretend that there is.
Our desires presage the capacities within us; they are harbingers of what we shall be able to accomplish. What we can do and want to do is projected in our imagination, quite outside ourselves, and into the future. We are attracted to what is already ours in secret. Thus passionate anticipation transforms what is indeed possible into dreamt-for reality.
By 2025 we expect new spacecraft designed for long journeys to allow us to begin the first ever crewed missions beyond the Moon into deep space. So we'll start by sending astronauts to an asteroid for the first time in history. By the mid-2030s I believe we can send humans to orbit Mars and return them safely to Earth. And a landing on Mars will follow and I expect to be around in see it.
Who would fare better in this world of fitful time? Those who have seen the future and live only one life? Or those who have not seen the future and wait to live life? Or those who deny the future and live two lives?