The future has an ancient heart

In her book, Cheryl Strayed is writing to a group of soon-to-be English degree laureate’s who are unsure of themselves. Who don’t know if they chose the right path and what’s waiting down the line.

She shares a primitive truth with them in the form of a single sentence, “The future has an ancient heart.”

“There’s a line by the Italian writer Carlo Levi that I think is apt here: “The future has an ancient heart.” I love it because it expresses with such grace and economy what is certainly true—that who we become is born of who we most primitively are; that we both know and cannot possibly know what it is we’ve yet to make manifest in our lives.” [[LN 📘 Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed]] (page 129)

It summarizes the known-unknown that permeates our lives: that we both know and cannot possibly know how our lives will unfold and who we will ultimately become.

That our lives are composed of a puzzle of our own creation and yet stem from unknown origins.

We are hostages of genetic ransom and environmental conditions. We don’t get to choose the time period we’re born into or the family that claims our last name. Our lives, in so many ways, are oriented the most by factors we have no control over.

There are so many wild and mysterious forces at play in a human being’s life. From the name we’re given to the mentors who shape us, the bodies we inhabit to the partner’s we choose—so much of our lives seem to be composed of luck and happenstance while others seem to be drawn from certitude and survival.

Are our lives our own? Look back on your life. Think about the people you’ve met, the places you’ve lived, and the things you’ve done. If even one of these factors were to be changed, your entire life—you—would be totally different.

I’ve always been fascinated by how life constructs meaning in mysterious ways. How the obstacles in our lives mold us like clay. The very things sent to break us are precisely the mechanisms that forge us.

It lays to reason that there are wild and mysterious forces inside and between human being’s that defy explanation.

That from deep within and far beyond there is a voice that gives reason that we already are who we most want to be. Now, our work is to bring that being, that knowing, that deep inner truth right up to the surface so it can be made manifest into reality.

Angelina Jolie gave a humanitarian speech that I believe sums this up well:

“I have never understood why some people are lucky enough to be born with the chance that I had, to have this path in life and why across the world, there is a woman just like me, with the same abilities and the same desires, the same work ethic and love for her family, who would most likely make better films and better speeches. Only she sits in a refugee camp, and she has no voice. She worries about what her children will eat, how to keep them safe, and if they’ll ever be allowed to return home.”

She goes on to say that “nothing would mean anything if I didn’t live a life of use to others.” I think that is the glue that binds us, the substance that unites us, the evolutionary advantage that has kept us alive for the past hundred thousand years.

When we acknowledge this truth, we let that wisdom carry us forward in everything we do and we trust that the knowing deep in our bones is bringing us exactly where we need to be.

Question for you: Instead of thinking about how to be successful—how can you be helpful?

Related notes:

• [[The goal in life is to develop your soul]]