The Future Anterior

The past that will have been. - Lynda Hart . . . the future anterior is a locution in which one finds the future retroactively, "a memory curious about its own future . . . which refuses simply to repeat the old saw 'once upon a time' over and over again . . . as if nothing had happened, the future anterior alters history; it is the miraculous tense, the tense of healing. - Catherine Clement You are talking to a close friend, preferably someone you will know for a very long time (say, a partner to someone to whom you owe money). You start to hypothesize about how you will reflect upon the present when you are 80 years old, or 10 years from now, or whenever. The point is that space in time - - that location in time - - is the future anterior: that place you are able to imagine yourself in sometime in the future. My example might be this: When I am 45 years old, I will look back on this moment and giggle at how little I really knew. When Clement says that the future anterior alters history, what she means is this: If I saw my future anterior as one where I would look back and wish I were 20 again when I was rich, carefree, and out of control, I am predicting for myself a future in which I am worse off than I was at 20. If, though, I say "My example" from above, I predict a future for myself where I know more then than I know now... I also assume that my future will contain at least one happy moment--the moment I take aside to think back, reflect and giggle. My future anterior vision also shows that I see my future self alive, functioning, and able to remember my life. I do not have amnesia, and I am at the very least still in some sort of dialogue with reality. In reality, I see my future anterior as more than this. Ever have those moments when you think to yourself, "I will look back on this moment in 15 years and regret that I did not _______________________ . . .” In essence, you are using your own voice as a weapon against your future. You are creating in that moment of future anterior imagining a self-fulfilling prophesy. First, the sentence is a declarative one. It does not ask if you will look back and regret; it says that you for sure will. And the future you're casting for yourself is one where you consciously walked toward a mistake knowing that you would not be happy with it... you recognized before you get ready to make a choice that the option you are about to pick does not put you on a path toward happiness, but a path toward regret. That is why Clement calls the future anterior a healing one - In the present, by considering our own almost-subconscious thoughts about our future anterior (i.e. how we phrase our future anterior prophesies, where we are in those visions, who we are with in those visions, how old we are), we are able to see the pattern we are currently enabling and stop it before we are in the moment we are describing. That is why Clement calls the future anterior a miraculous one - Where else are you allowed to see what your future self will likely do/think/feel/worry about/regret/enjoy/remember/believe, and have the power in that moment to affect it? The future anterior holds the key to our own well-being and happiness. - me