The human experience of the passage of time is something that we all grapple with.
We have access to the past through our own memories and our collective and individual records whether in the form of writing, art, drama, music, buildings or artefacts. We are living in the present. Yet we have no way of seeing into the future. We can never truly predict or anticipate the consequences of decisions we take. We have no way of knowing when something outside of our control will change the direction of our lives irrevocably.
This is something that we, as a species, have always found difficult. Every major religion and philosophical school has considered free will, predetermination and randomness and how these align or conflict with our existence. In ancient times, people visited oracles, soothsayers and sages in an attempt to gain knowledge of their future. Even today, there are still people who visit astrologers or who read books on the claims of Nostradamus.
Literature and drama have also continually grappled with free will, predetermination and the uncertainty of the future. The Greek myths of Oedipus and Jason have as central themes the attempts of people to avoid destiny – yet in the prevailing belief of the time fate was something set and inescapable, so attempts to outmanoeuvre it often ended with characters unwittingly enabling it.
In the last two centuries, science fiction and fantasy have explored the dilemma via time travel. Stories about time travel usually revolve around characters either travelling to a future that they subsequently try to avert, or travelling to the past and having to undo or correct an error that impacts their present. Sometimes, the conflict between predetermination and free will is never resolved. The Terminator films frequently feature main characters stating that “there is no fate except that which we make ourselves” – yet over the course of six films and despite multiple attempts they’ve not managed to avert the cataclysmic nuclear holocaust and rise of malevolent machines at the heart of the story’s dystopian future. On the other hand, the Back to the Future series does show material differences in future timelines caused by the action of the characters. In the first film, Marty McFly has to restore his own future after accidentally intervening in the meeting of his parents. Yet the changes made to their first meeting and his father’s bravery in finally standing up to the school bully Biff not only ensure Marty’s conception – but are shown to have had lasting impacts in improving his parents’ marriage and satisfaction with their lives when he returns to his present. This potential for change was reinforced by the plots of the two subsequent sequels.
In our ordinary lives, we have no access to time travel and no way of seeing into the future. We don’t truly know whether Covid-19 will be successfully dealt with by a single vaccine like diptheria, tetanus and polio, or whether it will become something like the flu that requires an annual vaccine. Alternatively it could be something that we simply learn to live with and develop treatments and behavioural changes for, like HIV.
We don’t know whether in thirty years time, our children will tell their children “Oh yes, I remember that, we all wore masks in the shops and we didn’t go to school for six months” or whether mask wearing and some social distancing will be so normal that the idea of shaking hands or greeting kisses will seem alien.
We can’t yet tell whether the changes that we’ve seen during the lockdown with reduced travel and industrial activity will herald a new era focussed on decarbonisation, pedestrianisation of urban areas and improved air quality – or whether we’ll actually see urban pollution get temporarily worse post-lockdown as people eschew public transport for their cars.
We don’t know whether people who lose jobs due to Covid-19 will find their way back to the same businesses and industries in a few years following a recovery, or whether they will take different paths altogether and find new careers and businesses.
Whilst many beliefs and philosophies take different positions on predetermination, chance and free will – one thing that virtually all of them agree on is that we must be guided by our conscience and be true to ourselves. We have no way of predicting the future, yet we can all control whether we meet it as the best version of ourselves or as the worst.