かこ+ みらい = くのう
past + future = suffering
It was 11:42 p.m. The wine was gone. The heavy, absolute silence of the Mojave Desert had settled over us like a wool blanket.
I was sitting in the sand, watching the embers of our campfire breathe a deep, pulsating red against the black backdrop of Joshua Tree.
I looked at the three men sitting across from me:
- The Strategist: Methodically arranging the unburnt logs into a perfect pyramid.
- The Inventor: Leaning back, scanning the Milky Way with binoculars.
- The Philosopher: Sitting cross-legged, perfectly still, staring into the flames.
“I have a question,” I said, my voice sounding small in the vastness. “Do you spend more time thinking about the future or the past?”
Their answers formed a perfect map of the human condition and three distinct mental models for viewing time.
The Strategist: Using History as Data (The Past)
The Strategist answered first. He spoke with the cadence of a mechanic diagnosing an engine.
“I spend almost all my time in the past,” he said. “But only because it is the only way to survive the future.”
He pointed the iron poker at a log that had just collapsed. “See that? Wood burns, structure weakens, gravity takes over. It is a mechanism.”
The Mental Model: Cyclic History
To the Strategist, time is not a line; it is a circle.
- Pattern Recognition: He believes that everything happening now—financial crashes, political revolutions—has happened before.
- Predictive Power: “If you identify the cycle in history, the future stops being a mystery and becomes a probability distribution.”
- The Utility: He looks backward to find the engine’s blueprints. You cannot drive the car if you don’t know how it was built.
The Inventor: Optimism as a Duty (The Future)
The Inventor lowered his binoculars. He smiled, shaking his head.
“I have to disagree,” he said. “The past is dead data. I live in the future.”
He gestured expansively at the darkness above us, where the stars hung like diamonds in a net.
The Mental Model: Exponential Growth
To the Inventor, we are entering a world of complexity—AI, biotech, the Technium—that has no historical precedent.
- The Trajectory: “If you only look at history, you become a pessimist. But if you look at the trajectory of evolution, you see that things are getting a tiny bit better every day.”
- Strategic Optimism: He believes optimism is not a feeling, but a duty. You have to visualize the destination to steer the ship there.
- The Vision: We are at the “beginning of the beginning.” The impossible is just an engineering problem we haven’t solved yet.
The Philosopher: The Power of Presence (The Now)
The two of them looked at the Philosopher. He hadn’t moved. He was watching a single spark drift up into the smoke and vanish into the cold air.
“You are both missing the point,” he said. His voice was quiet, but it cut through the desert chill. “You are both choosing to be unhappy.”
“I don’t spend time in the past or the future,” he continued. “I try, as hard as I can, to stay right here.”
The Mental Model: The Void
He picked up a handful of sand and let it slip through his fingers.
- Regret vs. Anxiety: “Thinking about the past is just Regret—the ego trying to rewrite a story that is already finished. Thinking about the future is just Anxiety—the ego trying to control an outcome that hasn’t happened yet.”
- The Reality: “Your history is a story you tell yourself to feel safe. Your future is a fantasy you tell yourself to feel hopeful.”
- True Effectiveness: The only thing that is actually real is this fire, this cold air, and this sensation of sitting here. When you empty your mind of time, you become free.
Synthesis: Which Fire Are You Watching?
The fire popped, loud and sharp, sending a shower of sparks upward.
I sat there, shivering slightly. I realized that a balanced life requires the ability to switch between these three modes intentionally.
| Mode | Focus | Emotion | Best Use Case |
| The Strategist | Past | Caution | Avoiding mistakes, financial planning, analyzing data. |
| The Inventor | Future | Hope | Setting goals, building products, creative vision. |
| The Philosopher | Now | Peace | Living, loving, reducing stress, deep work. |
The trick is knowing which chair to sit in. When you are planning, be the Strategist. When you are building, be the Inventor. But when you are sitting by the fire, just be the fire.
life 