Becoming Your Future Self

In the late 1960s there was a book — The Medium is the Message, by an author, Marshall McLuhan that was all the rage. In the book McLuhan – addressing television – asserted that the message had both content and character, the content (The show that was on) was an easily grasped message – it was entertaining — while the character of the medium conveyed another message which was being easily overlooked.

Now, 50 years later, no one would dispute that — the development of cell phones with its explosion in the number of screens, combined with the omnipresence of social media has grown to epidemic proportions, resulting in many States and localities moving to ban these devices from schools.

One of McLuhan’s colleagues, Edmund Carpenter, was my professor in an anthropology seminar I took in graduate school. Carpenter had also written a book, They Became What They Beheld, that explored how media and visual culture shape human awareness via the profound effects images have on creating new patterns of perception that influence the way people see themselves and the world around them.

That book, and its title played a part in my journey as I dropped out of the academic world and immersed myself in the natural one. Hiking through the Cascades and Canadian Rockies for a summer was a very different medium than navigating my way through a political science department. The character of this new medium was vastly different – richer, more vital, soul affirming… better! – as I became what I beheld. “We cannot truly know ourselves without knowing the living earth, for it is the ground of our being. Nature is the visible face of the spirit, and our nature and spirit will only be found within, and not apart from her. We cannot meet our maker inside a world that we have made.”

Years later I found myself writing a flyer for a workshop – Exploring the Dreamtime — that I was offering in Vermont. In describing it I stated that the myth of modern psychology — its focus and its truth– is that our lives are determined by our past, our personal history, wounds, and childhood experience. The myth of the ancient world asserts that our lives can be determined by something else — our destiny — accessible if we follow the voice of the spirit and the callings of our soul

“We sit in the present, the axis where past and future meet. We have a decision to make –will our lives and identity be determined by where we have come from or where we are going?”

We become what we behold. Where we’re going is determined by what we’re looking towards, whether geographically or temporally. Throwing a baseball, shooting a basket… The body knows how to move; stay out of your head and focus on where you want the ball to go. Walking a ledge or tightrope, crossing a stream by skipping rock to rock – Stay focused on where you’re going and you’ll probably get there. Keep thinking/worrying about the fall and you’ll fall!

Look backward at your life — see a therapist; hire a coach; focus on your childhood… a time when you were small and most the world was bigger. Pay attention to all the hurts; the shame you felt when being laughed at or teased. Overlook the fact you’re older and bigger! Delve into all the old feelings of victimhood and in ten years you’ll likely be committed to that story.All traditional cultures had rites of passage to say goodbye to childhood and move the youth forward into the bigger world of adulthood, to help them become their Future Self. Who will you be in 5, 10, or 20 years? Think of your destiny and walking toward it with a full heart, the spirit fully alive in you.

Light the spark; activate the process; begin to visualize that person now. Feel him or her within you and begin to embody that man or woman today. Clear out the closets; get rid of anything that’s not in harmony with that big dream that wants to be lived. Keep your eyes on where you’re going and become what you behold!

 ~ August 9,2026