Nothing is provably certain

A philosophic statement. A self-fulfilling prophecy. Indeed. I mean, how can I ever really prove that "nothing is provably certain"?

In our lives, we are asked to make decisions on the basis of information, which, at best is probabilistic. Starting from our birth. No one can really prove that the child will enjoy a long life. No one can claim with any degree of certainity that the child in question will not be a blot on society. No one can state with any authority on anything thats coming in the childs future. About the only thing that is certain regarding that child is its information, in the here and now. Its physical characteristics, and its present meta-physical, physical and psychological behaviors. But, even this was not provably certain at the time of the conception of the child.

What I am trying to drive at here, with so much of beating around the bush as my father eloquently puts it, is that life is so unpredictable. Life is so in the "here-and-now", that its almost useless (nah, totally useless) to actually get hung up on what could be or should be. Time and again, we hear about people putting something off to tomorrow, in the hope that tomorrow is a better day to do it. What they sometimes tend to forget is tomorrow's another day, with its own set of challenges. I mean, how many of us can honestly say we've never experienced the moving-deadlines curse, just because we were so certain we would finish the task on hand the following day.

Without splitting hairs, one thing that we need to realize is that "tomorrow is another day" and there is no certainity that, tomorrow, you will be what you are today. Chances are pretty good that you will remain what you are today, or be better off or worse off. But, its not certain. Given this situation, isn't it then worthwhile for us to realize the here-and-now and act on things, NOW?

We tend to postpone relaxing and having fun and balance in life to tomorrow, because today we are so pre-occupied with making our life better for tomorrow. But, as the recent spate of advertising by Universal Orlando reminds us, people in general are taking less vacations and are working themselves to death. Ouch. What those folks probably forgot was that they were working to live, and not living to work. I guess they were driven by their faith in a better tomorrow.

Which brings us to the root of the whole "nothing is certain" thing. The belief system. It is the belief in the promise of a better tomorrow that keeps us going. It is the belief in the better future that helps us plod through today. It is the optimism of happy days ahead that helps light the path toward those days. This belief is at the root of all things that make us what we are: human.

But lets not take it for more than what it is. A promise. A belief. Lets not hallucinate ourselves into it so much that we forget to enjoy the today. Life is a sensible balance of living the present and planning the future. Lets live and not exist.