where the future is behind you
Why do we talk about the future as ahead of us and the past behind us? Among the Aymara, an ancient Andean people, it's the other way around. For them, the past is before them, the future behind. That is, the past, which we know with some certainty having actually experienced it, is what can be seen in front of us. The future, which we aren't certain of, is the unseen. Given that our vision is our paramount sense, and, like predator species our eyes are both facing front (unlike vegetarian species like squirrels and goats whose eyes are set to the sides of their faces so they can see the focused predators approaching them), this distribution of information -- certainty of the past before us versus uncertainty of the future behind -- makes perfect sense. It makes so much sense that you wonder why we think the future is ahead of us and the past behind. A moment's thought provides a good answer. Since we are a predator species, we want to see our prey in order to capture ...