Promises

We have to gamble on promises.  That is a good summation of this first section.  It is interesting how Michael Fortun describes promises as never now; as always either already or about to.  Well, I guess it’s a quote… but it meshes well with the overall scheme of unclear directions and destinations represented by the chiasma.  Of course that’s why Fortun used it… or that is what I am going to assume.  It seems as though what he is implying is that the future is a set of promises we have made to ourselves and to each other.  How those promises will unfold is where the gambling comes in.  We build everything up on foundations of promising.  It is more than a little disconcerting to think about the implications of that idea.  But it is also wonderful; promising opens up possibilities and helps us to attain goals and accomplish maybe not what we set out to do—what we promised—but something more than what otherwise would have been.

I love the conclusion of this middle chapter.  Fortun’s description of exceeding and becoming more—more than what we can actually conceive or plan for or be prepared for.  “We happen our way into a future without our full understanding or control, and that is something for which we should rejoice and be glad.”  This is not to imply that we have no control at all, rather that we can examine these fissures: not just the ones Fortun writes about and examines in his book but all the chs that follow from them and more.  He calls for an interdisciplinary approach that I found convincing.  We should each utilize the tools at our disposal to experiment and to think on the possibilities and promises that surround us.