Dad used to use this phrase often, "the past portends the future." As much as I respect my Dad, I don't know if I agree.
I believe that through the past (failures or successes) we have the opportunity to learn and make change for our future self.
People who know a lot more than me describe this ability as "growth mindset", or a capacity for reflecting on and transcending turbulent ordeals with greater resolve and purpose. I think I call it improvising.
Why improvising?
Because creating music is creating and building upon the past, present, and future all at once. I play a solo and another musician takes what I did, builds on it, and hands it back to me in the form of their solo. I take their solo, build on it, and hand it back to them as mine. The past is informing our present and our future. We improvise through life.
People like us who have this mindset of doing things better by doing better things, improvise through life. Our past informs who we are now and what we get to decide to be next. We improvise.
