How we act mat­ters. What we say mat­ters. What we think affects every­thing. We are respon­si­ble for pass­ing along a world in decent shape for the ones who come after us.

As par­ents are respon­si­ble for car­ing for their chil­dren, so too are the adults of every gen­er­a­tion also respon­si­ble for car­ing for the world that they leave to their grand­chil­dren and great-grandchildren.

We all only get one life. We get to make as many mis­takes as we need. We also get this one shot to ensure we have con­tributed pos­i­tive­ly to the con­di­tions of our plan­et and soci­ety for the peo­ple who will inher­it both when we pass on. How we treat our­selves, how we treat oth­ers, how we go about our var­i­ous affairs, the lives we choose to live out, all of these deci­sions have an impact on the over­all mood and real­i­ty sur­round­ing each per­son. We have no clue what it’s like to inhab­it some­one else’s body or mind. All we can do is prac­tice empa­thy and com­pas­sion for oth­ers, and do our best to main­tain a base­line iden­ti­ty that is open enough to care for life.

Life is teem­ing with val­ue. This val­ue is not able to be bro­ken up into units of mea­sure­ment. This val­ue is total. Genomes and all. Each of us is as a uni­verse unto our­selves. Each of us is a con­stel­la­tion of galax­ies swirling around oth­er con­stel­la­tions of galaxies.

Math­e­mat­i­cal­ly speak­ing, the arrow of time points in more than one direc­tion. The more we rec­og­nize our place with­in a con­tin­u­um of time, the more we can rec­og­nize the respon­si­bil­i­ty that liv­ing entails, the less self­ish we can become, and the more we can accom­plish altogether.

Think­ing of future gen­er­a­tions as actu­al­ly our lit­tle sis­ters and broth­ers, or sons and daugh­ters, imme­di­ate­ly expands one’s per­spec­tive. Across cul­tures it’s com­mon to find forms of cer­e­mo­ni­al com­mu­ni­ca­tion with one’s ances­tors, to sum­mon insights and strength from fam­i­ly his­to­ry and the con­nec­tions between lives. The ven­er­a­tion of ances­tors through rit­u­al prac­tice has been fun­da­men­tal to Chi­nese folk reli­gion for mil­len­nia and is com­ple­men­tary to Con­fu­cian ideals of fil­ial piety. In Indone­sia, the dead are pre­served and even dis­played once a year in a kind of res­ur­rec­tion. There’s a con­nec­tion being traced between those who came before and those who live now. We should always be look­ing for a way to hon­or the expe­ri­ence of those who have passed.

Com­mu­ni­cat­ing with our ances­tors places us in the past. We reach back to gain wis­dom or strength to then take with us into our jour­ney ahead. Although the knowl­edge of the future might be less clear, we can also find ways to speak to future gen­er­a­tions. Per­haps the sim­plest place to start is to offer wish­es and place inten­tions to your future self. As we envi­sion the out­lines of a future state of exis­tence, we must also cre­ate more aware­ness of our present con­di­tion and think about how best these present and future selves are con­nect­ed. We can rather eas­i­ly con­struct mes­sages to our future descen­dants. Ask your­self, if you were to talk with one of your great-great-grand­chil­dren, what would be most impor­tant to communicate?

“We change so much that maybe the alien we go in search of is ourselves.”
— Astro­naut Yvonne Cagle¹⁵

One of the most fre­quent­ly relat­ed mes­sages between fam­i­ly mem­bers is love for one anoth­er. An extreme­ly uncon­ven­tion­al exam­ple of a rel­a­tive from the dis­tant future shar­ing a mes­sage of love and col­lec­tive uplift, can be wit­nessed in how an Amer­i­can man, named Dar­ryl Anka, chan­nels an extra-ter­res­tri­al being named Bashar. The name Bashar has its roots in Ara­bic, in which it means “bringer of good news, or good tid­ings”. In con­nec­tion with the mean­ing of this name, Bashar deliv­ers mes­sages per­tain­ing to the pos­i­tive syn­chronic­i­ty of a cos­mic civ­i­liza­tion 300 years in our future. These trans­mis­sions elic­it an idea about how today’s human species might play a role in help­ing to make way for a future state of extra-ter­res­tri­al har­mo­nious, sus­tain­able co-exis­tence. While we, as observers of these trans­mis­sions, might dis­agree about the valid­i­ty or details of Bashar’s com­mu­ni­ca­tions, we are more than will­ing to embrace a future-ori­ent­ed mindset.

The idea of retro-fore­cast­ing thoughts and ideas from the future back to our present cir­cum­stances, is one applic­a­ble tech­nique for the prac­tice of inno­va­tion. By adopt­ing a future-based per­spec­tive to con­sid­er the present moment, we are able to see our­selves in a new light. Ide­al­ly, we can learn to more effec­tive­ly con­sid­er our cur­rent exis­tence as an inte­gral part of an infi­nite evolution.