Time Patrol agents can read about an event, then experience it. A Patrol Specialist reads about a period, then experiences it, then writes about it although he must not read beforehand what he will write afterward. Manse Everard, Unattached, works with Carl Farness and Janne Floris, Specialists. In both cases, the Specialist's prior knowledge does not adequately prepare them for their experience of the past. And we are completely unprepared for our experience of the future.
2 comments:
It's not really possible to be "ready" for one's personal future, because it's unpredictable and contingent, and contingent on factors of which we have no knowledge and no control.
Only in retrospect can it be given structure and causal chains -- and that only to a limited degree, because our knowledge of it is so limited.
But you can't, of course, not -try- to control the future. The secret to doing that effectively is to be nimble; which is von Molkte the Elder made his famous dicta that planning is everything... but any specific plan is 'less than nothing'. Something which, fortunately for us, his successors as head of the Supreme General Staff lost sight of.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree with what you said about how difficult it is to plan for the future, because it is unpredictable. But, as you also added, that should not mean we can't at least try to make plans for that future. Which I've been doing for many years via savings and investments. I don't want to depend only on a pension and Social Security!
Having a fairly wide financial margin is one way of being "nimble"!
I used to think a German victory in WW I might have been at least preferable to what we gout in our timeline: Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, et al. But your Black Chamber books shows us how that might have been almost as bad as they were!
Ad astra! Sean
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