Future (im)perfect

On page 180 of the 1950 edition of Bergson's Matter and Memory, I read: "That which I call my present is my attitude with regard to the immediate future; it is my impending action." And so, if I understand correctly, we might say that the present is a realm of imminence. It is the about-to-have-happened.

Which is very different from, say, the view of Jacques Brel, when he describes the life of a girl who has turned to the streets in 'Timid Frieda:

Timid Frieda, if you see her,
On the street where the future gathers
Just let her be her, let her play in
The broken times of sand

Ouch, right? In such a conception, the future is now cast as a mere reprisal of a lost past. And the present? Nothing but a broken environment, to be overcome.

Here at halfstep, though, we're never quite wholly French. We're baffled by ethereal theory, and we eschew the poetic, as often, for the literal. The future? Well, from my perspective, dear reader, you're living in it. And the past, and present? Both seem to us to be realms characterized by a rich possibility.

But I'll let Cleo explain what I mean. Last night, as we walked home from getting ice cream, Cleo asked about the function of a flag pole base. Well, I said, it holds up the flag pole. But let me tell you a story about that. Years ago, before you were born, it was Mom's birthday, and I made a sort of treasure hunt for her. I put a clue behind that base, and the clue led to another clue, and that clue to yet another - and then the last clue took her to a restaurant, where some of her friends were waiting for her.

Cleo digested this anecdote. And then asked: "Did you do that because you were too shy to speak to her?"

Well, I hadn't thought of it in that way. I had thought of those clues, in fact, as guiding impending actions. But, now that they're in the past, let's play with them, in the broken times of sand.