Uncertainty About The Future

The present is the point from which everyone can prepare for the future, yet the present moment is so fleeting that to think about it means what was once the present has already elapsed into the past, and the future is beyond human perception.  Only that logical necessities like axioms will remain true is knowable about the future.  They are the only things that must be true, so they are the only things that are absolutely certain in themselves, and even other knowledge of perceptions is only knowable through reason; God could crease to exist and the cosmos with him in two moments, natural disasters could strike with no evidence beforehand whatsoever, and relationships that have no problems at all could suddenly falter.

These and many other things are entirely possible because they do not contradict logical axioms.  All else that can be known about the future is either logical possibilities or evidential probabilities, none of which reveal what will happen, only what could occur or what appears will be the case.  The typical non-rationalist does not think of these matters in the right way or context (divorced from reason, they are bound to assumptions or avoidable ignorance), but, as important and subjectively intoxicating as this philosophical knowledge can be, it will do nothing to deliver someone from the uncertainty of the future no matter the pain and inconvenience they are wading through in the present.

It is not knowing what the future holds--and for thorough rationalists, also knowing that there is absolutely nothing humans can do to know the future given their limitations--that can weigh so heavily on someone in their suffering, overwhelmed or terrified of what might be on the horizon.  One trial so often paves the way for the next, and if the future was known, so much pain could be averted or lessened.  So many marital problems, professional woes, and more could be sidestepped or quickly resolved if only people saw the future that they are on course to realize, discovering that it is neither not what they personally desire nor what honors the objective truth.

The only way to see the future is to endure moment by moment amidst whatever uncertainties the present entails.  Someone might hold themselves together psychologically all the way to the end of an ordeal and find that their life is objectively or subjectively better ("easier" or "preferable" in the case of the latter).  Another person might find worsening misery on the other side of time in their life.  There is no way to know what exactly will happen until it does, and even then, one will still not know the then-future, not know beyond unverifiable memories what has happened in the past, and live in yet another fleeting present moment.

Having a worldview that is both true and verifiable, though this can bring personal sadness or frustrations of its own, is clearly the best way to weather the shifting, sometimes relentless onslaught of trials that mark almost every human life.  One can at least know logical necessities and find encouragement and resolve in how they cannot change.  One can find relief and motivation in knowing that the uncaused cause is very likely the benevolent Yahweh of Christianity.  One can find hope in how it is not impossible for trials to end.  Each of us still must live moment by moment with all of the uncertainty, much of it overlooked by the irrationalistic masses, that human existence in this state entails.