You will never be certain about the future, but you will always be certain about the future.

This is not a contradiction. It is a fact. The future is a box that has not been opened yet, but you are already holding it. You can feel its weight, its edges, its vague promise of something inside. You shake it. You listen. You pretend you know what it sounds like.

Predictions are just guesses with more confidence. You make them every day. The weather. The traffic. The way someone will react. You are wrong more often than you admit, but that doesn’t stop you. You keep guessing. You keep pretending. You keep holding the box.

This could have been a box.

Meaning is not something you find. It is something you assign. You assign it to objects, to moments, to people. You assign it to the future. You tell yourself that the future has meaning, that it is moving toward something. You tell yourself this because it is easier than the alternative.

The alternative is silence. The alternative is a box that is empty. The alternative is a box that is not a box at all, but just a void shaped like a box. You do not want to think about that. So you assign meaning. You assign it quickly, before the silence gets too loud.

You will read this and think, “This doesn’t help.” You are correct. It doesn’t help. It was never meant to help. It was meant to sit next to you, quietly, like a box you haven’t opened yet. You will glance at it sometimes. You will wonder what’s inside. You will forget about it. Then you will remember it again.

The future is unclear, but you will keep pretending it isn’t. You will keep assigning meaning. You will keep holding the box. And one day, you will open it. Or you won’t. Either way, the box will still be there.