The Future Has an Ancient Heart
This article was originally published on my personal blog in 2016.
On the plane ride home from England, I found myself returning to a favorite book of mine — Dear Sugar, a book of advice from The Rumpus written by Cheryl Strayed.
Confession: I haven’t actually finished it yet. I’ve started it many times. I love Cheryl Strayed’s advice. It’s compassionate and open and written so beautifully. Sometimes I feel like she’s talking directly to me.
Why haven’t I finished it? Because I want to think that suddenly I’m going to come across a letter written by me, that I’m going to find the advice I’ve been looking for in the last few weeks and months. And I know that’s not going to happen. There are no magic words for me.
But one of the letter titles spoke to me. I didn’t need to read the advice that followed to feel a sense of comfort.
The future has an ancient heart.
Carlo Levi, an Italian writer, wrote this. As Strayed interpreted the quote, “who we become is born of who we most primitively are, that we both know and cannot possibly know what it is we’ve yet to make manifest in our lives.”
