As my
son and I walk down the sandy road we read yesterday like a book. A rhino
walked along this path; you can feel his presence in his footprints, the size
of dinner plates, meticulously measured intervals, in a neat row. He was here
all right, he did not stop to eat, nor did he hesitate at the low water bridge,
he walked with diligence and measured intention to the midden where he
discarded the remains of a few meals, kickstarting the cycles of the dung
beetles and flies.
“I
wonder how often he comes this way”, my son asks, even though there is no need
to answer that question. We examine the rest of yesterday’s entomological
history written in the clean slate provided by the rhino. We can tell the
passage of the insects, even to the species, here and there we can even tell that
the chat were hunting ants as their trails suddenly ends where their path
crossed that of the chat. The end of another life. The chat’s chicks will not
mind though. 
For
many reasons, we humans are intensely interested in knowing the future. Some
make predictions, some stare into crystal balls, and others construct computer
models, but tomorrow remains largely unknown. There are no accurate
methodological approaches to study details of the future.
However,
we are incredibly good at studying the past. We can learn so much - the forms,
the functions and the workings of things, the patterns, the processes and
cycles and the dimensions of time. There are so many things we can decipher and
measure in the past that may help us to understand something of the
future. We learn the amplitude of events and from that we can at least
say what limits the future may conform and behave to, or the boundaries the
future will adhere to or within.
When
the camp attendant drops a wheelbarrow of wood near our fireplace I can see the
rings in the wood where the sharp axe cleaved through time. The age of those
branches and trees can be determined in a manner similar to that which my
fellow students at university counted the growth rings in the teeth of
predators and other beasts… their history trapped in their own bones, the
leaner times marked, and promising an era of more rapid growth. All the way
through time until you get to the outer layer, the year before death… the
ultimate end.
At a
much larger scale, the rivers may cut their own way through the “parent
material”, exposing the geology of the earth as layers accumulated in places,
revealing the genesis of the earth. This process is remarkably similar to the
archeologist’s meticulous labor exposing the life and times of the dwellers
within the caves. They pick through the dirt, and read their ancient history,
their recipe books, their enemies, art and births and deaths and other woes. It
is all there, we just need to learn to read the specific language of the
past.
Our
desire to decipher the future forces us to study the past and our endeavors to
do that focuses our minds on various measures of time. The most predictable of
all are most probably the seasons. As summer turns into autumn, announcing
winter, there is always for me a sense of promise in the turning of the
seasons. The earth is telling us: “Yes, winter is coming, and it will
come, but beyond winter lies the season of promise! Spring and summer”. Then,
the plants will blossom and bloom, seeds will germinate as will ideas, others
will come out of hibernation and a new cycle of life will initiate itself. So
the seasons are predictable, we know to a large extent what lies ahead in broad
terms. We are however completely unable to say with definitive accuracy if this
winter is going to a cold, or a mild one… we stash the wood
none-the-less. 
Studying
the beasts of the veld and the food and feed they eat for nourishment, we can
determine that some will live one season only, others will be around for a few.
The pachyderms will most probably live as long as one can expect a mammal to
live for. We can predict, based on the past, that the impala will drop their
young at the right time, when the earth generously provides; each year, they
will do it, until their end. So can we, if we get a mate, if we are fertile, if
we have enough to build a home and if, and if, and many many other ifs… That
level of detail is not known, and never will be. But, strangely, we know what
we need to know. We know the seasons are pretty well defined in time, so we can
prepare our fields and plant our crops, and harvest and plan for the dry months.
We can count our kids and determine the amount of food to hoard. Perhaps that
level of detail is enough, do we need to know more? 
I
wonder about the history I am writing for my sons and their children. It
reminds me that we need write good stories in the sand for those who follow us.
It is in our power to make the present good, for what we do today, will, like
the rhino’s path, be tomorrow’s history. We may not be able to know our future,
but perhaps and far more importantly, its our duty to make the history books of
those who will follow us worthy of further examination! Make that history good,
make it count - it may change someone else’s tomorrow.
Perhaps,
like the past, the future is written in these rocks and trees and rivers and
tracks in the sand. Perhaps the days and the nights are the individual
words, the months are the paragraphs, while the seasons account for the
sections of the chapters, announced by the different years, punctuated by
droughts and wet seasons. As such there may be many books, libraries in fact,
all capturing, harboring and hiding the history and the future for those bold
enough to read the words.
