A Few Rules for Predicting the Future by Octavia E. Butler
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A Few Rules for Predicting the Future by Octavia E. Butler
When a student asks Butler what the answer is to ending the suffering in the world, she replies, “...there’s no single answer that will solve all of our future problems. There’s no magic bullet. Instead there are thousands of answers–at least. You can be one of them if you choose to be.”
A Few Rules for Predicting the Future by Octavia E. Butler
reminds me of this quote: “If you think globally, you become filled with gloom. But if you take a little piece of this whole picture—my piece, our piece, this is what I can do here, I’m making a difference and they’re making a difference over there, and so are they, and so are they—gradually the pieces get filled in. And the world is a better place because of you.”
So why try to predict the future at all if it’s so difficult, so nearly impossible? Because making predictions is one way to give warning when we see ourselves drifting in dangerous directions. Because prediction is a useful way of pointing out safer, wiser courses. Because, most of all, our tomorrow is the child of our today.