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“Presentitis” could generate dangerous consequences

Francisco Miraval

We live in a world where everything is change constantly and rapidly. In such a world, it is dangerous to contract “presentitis”, an unhealthy expansion of the “present” that leads the affected person to believe current conditions are the same as the conditions of the past and the basis for the future. However, that’s not the case.

In my classes, I frequently ask my students to think about words such as “computer” and “car”. Very few students, if any, know that “computer” was first applied to people doing computations before it was applied to machines. And few, if any, know that “car” is the abbreviation of “horseless carriage”.

If you assume that the current meaning of a word is the same meaning that word always had, then you will be confuse reading about “computers” working a century ago during World War I, or reading about “horseless carriages”, an expression used at a time when cars with motors (automobiles) were new and clarifications were needed.

Those examples are clearly superficial ones. However, “presentitis” becomes a bigger problem when it infects concepts such as “ethics” or “prophecy”, which, in spite of being abstract, have an undeniable impact on the everyday lives of millions of people.

Yet, many people have a hard time understanding that “ethics” had different meaning at different times in history and that the current meaning of “prophecy” is different from the meaning that words had at other times, to quote only two of countless examples.

Extending those examples to the totality of life, we could say that not knowing the past (Goethe suggested you should know at least 3000 years of history) creates the illusion that the present is the model for all situations, past and future, perhaps with less technology in the past and with more technology in the future, but, other than that, the same situation.

In trying to keep the present as a present they want to keep as it is and without any changes, people will face interesting challenges. The person affected by “presentitis” will usually refuse to leave the past and will also refuse to enter the future. Yet, in order for that refusal to be implemented, they need to find a justification. And the justification adopts numerous forms.

For example, people affected by “presentitis” will say something like “That’s now what I was told” or “That’s not what I believe”. Contrary to what it may seem, that’s not a sign of respect to a tradition or to the teachings received, but an excuse or a defense mechanism to avoid moving beyond the present.

Yet, while we live trapped in the present, the future will inexorably arrive day after day, bringing challenges never faced or thought by those who taught us what they taught us when, with love and sincerity, shared their teachings and beliefs with us.

So, what should be do? What’s the cure for “presentitis”? It’s opening our minds, hearts, and hands to cocreate the future together, as Dr. Otto Scharmer suggests.

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