I’ve vaguely heard in passing the phrase, “the future determines the past.” I believe it came from Youtube titles referencing something from the theoretical edge of physics. But on Youtube, the phrase sometimes serves as esoteric click-bait, producing the mild effect of psychedelic incense, as if it were a wisdom too lofty for daily life.

“Esoteric” essentially means knowledge reserved for a select few. So, it’s a snobby concept. In reality (let’s call it), the “esoteric” is usually just a framework wider than the familiar, until it becomes familiar.

There’s nothing esoteric about the phrase, “the future determines the past.”

This is merely the reverse side of a more familiar illusion of “time.” The past determines the future as much as the future determines the past. Because both past and future are illusory, and both lose their meaning in a timeless awareness, which can’t even be called “the present” (because even “the present moment” is only an illusion of time passing).

So, while it’s easy and familiar to imagine that our actions in the fleeting present (which immediately becomes the past) determine our situation in the future (which means the past determines the future), it’s also possible to see that the future (a later “present moment”) redefines the significance of past events.

For instance, if I’m behaving like a miserable, selfish idiot and someone comes up to me and says, “you’re behaving like a selfish, miserable jerk!” what is the significance of this encounter?

Well, if I go on to live a life brooding with rage at that person, and drink myself into an even more miserable state of selfishness, then the encounter will be significant only as an excuse for becoming even more miserable.

But if I go on to live a life brooding with rage at that person and then wake up one morning and realize that he or she was right, and sober up and face myself squarely, changing my life, then that encounter is significant as a turning point.

What I do in the so-called “future” therefore determines the past.

And this is true at every moment, because there is no real past, present or future, but only an open-ended timelessness that includes all three as abstract derivations.