"I can't control my destiny, I trust my soul, my only goal is just to be. There's only now, there's only here. Give in to love or live in fear. No other path, no other way. No day but today."

Johnathan Larson

“A famous philosophical argument says that, if the future were real, then it would be fixed now, and we would not have the freedom to affect that future. Since we do have that freedom, the future can't be real.”

I suppose that the future is psychologically real in the sense that we can perceive ‘yes (as far as we can hope) tomorrow will come, and life will continue. However, can the future ever be physically real? For, isn’t it true, that once it becomes physically real, it will then have transformed into the present?

I believe that at one point the past was real (of course, technically speaking, it would then have been called the present…), but I’ve never seen a positive example of someone living in the past. To my thinking, it’s impossible to get back what has already happened; and, therefore, it is fairly damaging to live such a life advocating only the past.

It’s also vital to take a few other things into consideration when mulling over such a topic. First of all, we must reflect on the multitude of definitions for “real”: it can be something that is tangible and existent, (advocating the Presentist theory), something that absolutely occurred (supporting that the past is, in fact, real), or something actual as opposed to possible or potential (again encouraging the Presentist theory…the future could never be actual as it is only a potential because it hasn’t happened yet).

Now if that’s not puzzling enough, it’s crucial to also consider the question of choice versus fate/destiny. If one advocates that choice is what determines your path, then they will most likely take on the Presentist viewpoint—all we have is today and the choices we make now will influence what tomorrow brings. If one supports the idea of a predetermined destiny or fate, on the other hand, then they will probably conceive the future to be a very real entity—your path has already been laid out for you, and therefore, it is not simply a possibility but an actuality.

Personally, I believe that our path is crafted by a combination of both choices and fate. I think that we have a general direction that we are meant to head in (somewhat of the idea that we are born to be inherently good or evil), but also that we choose individual ‘off-roads’ through the many choices that we make (whether good or bad); and it is these choices that ultimately determine our end. I prefer to live a life encouraging a somewhat Presentist outlook. To some extent, I believe that we can only recognize and accept present objects and present experiences to be “real”; and that we, as “conscious beings”, must be innately aware of the extraordinary brilliance of our experience in the here-and-now.