Walking Backwards Into the Future? Does Narrative only work in retrospective?

I had a conversation with Benjamin Boyce @BenjaminABoyce (thank you for having me, Benjamin) and I wanted to revisit a little something he mentioned that's worth exploring.
Does story/narrative, or that idea of understanding your life as a story, only work in retrospective, or can you think of yourself as living a story that moves out into the future? Are stories just constructions that we spin out of past events in order to give them some significance or meaning, or is there some kind of relationship to the future?
This is an interesting question. My sense is that the uncertainty of the future is a big part of our existential experience of the human condition, but that there are some rich traditions involving narrative that might help us navigate this fundamental stiltedness that comes with being a finite human being; namely, this idea of "walking backwards into the future."
If you would like to join me on this journey through the seven basic plots, the lecture videos are linked below:
What is Rags to Riches? • What is the meaning of...
Introduction to the Seven Basic Plots: • On Writing - The Seven...
Rags to Riches (Lecture): • The Seven Basic Plots:...
Overcoming the Monster Part I: • On Writing- The Seven ...
Overcoming the Monster Part II: • On Writing -The Seven ...
Voyage and Return Part I: • On Writing - The Seven...
Voyage and Return Part II: • On Writing - The Seven...
Voyage and Return Part III: • On Writing - The Seven...
Voyage and Return Part IV: • On Writing - The Seven...
I was inspired by @youthnation1 and @PaulVanderKlay and @JonathanPageau in making these videos
For a great look at the 1986 Mets and Red Sox, @SecretBaseSBN has a great video on it here: • Bill Buckner’s World S...

[@isaacphoenix9200]

Let me preface this by say I love all your work. This video was fascinating to me because I actually use story to predict the future as well as organize the past. The difference is that you can't 100% predict the plot of what happens, but the themes of life aren't just set up in a solid pattern, but the pattern also imbues virtues and mental and emotional facets that are essential to living a fulfilling life. I use Dan Harmons Story Circle as a pattern because it is fractal, meaning that each pitch may or may not be a turning point depending on what happens next, but instead each moment is a turning point for a smaller story. We can't see beyond the horizon, but we do know the sun is on its way. So that's how I see it. And it has worked well for me.

[@justinsmorningcoffee]

Nice man. Yeah, I’d say that’s a version of what I’m saying here. You can’t so much predict specifics, but you can assume certain reoccurring themes or patterns.

[@VividLunaZ]

I have no idea how you entered my algorithm, but I am truly grateful for it. VERY interesting stuff.

[@justinsmorningcoffee]

Cool! I’m glad you are enjoying it! Are you an art/story or film person?

[@sameash3153]

This "walking backwards" metaphor reminds me of Marshall McLuhan's " rear-view mirror mindset". There's a metaphor you can borrow if you want to be able to credit the creator. His conception is that we are driving a car: as we look forward, we see the past behind us in the rear view mirror. The "mindset" of the rear view mirror is that we are blind to the present and imminent future around us, still believing that we are in the past, thinking what is behind is is still in front of us. As for the projection problem, the rear view mirror warns us that as we enter new territory, we can only "see it" after we pass it by. Note that both the walking bavkwards and the rear view mirror metaphors both nonetheless involve pushing onwards.

[@justinsmorningcoffee]

Yeah interesting, that’s maybe related to this whole idea that of thinking that exactly what happened before will repeat, sort of like when a baseball team (everything goes back to baseball for me) inks a player based on past performance, not future projections. Walking backwards into the future maybe is a little different, in that we are using the patterns we see in the past (narratives of the past) to make inductions about likely future outcomes or possibilities. So it’s using the past for insight, we might say, while still acknowledging our blindness to the future (our inability to see beyond the horizon).

[@sameash3153]

Although, in one lecture, McLuhan revises his metaphor and says " As I began to focus more on the mirror, I realized the mirror doesn't show objects past, but objects to come."

[@justinsmorningcoffee]

@@sameash3153 Woah! …that sounds like a shift from the western view of time to the ancient one (linear vs. circular).

[@sameash3153]

@@justinsmorningcoffee He often uses it to explain blindness to a new paradigm. So, in the early 2000s, most people were living in the "rear view mirror" when they began using social media. Though the forms were totally new, people adapted pretty quickly because their functions are similar to things people are already familiar with: KZbin is a public TV channel (and we still use "tube" and "channel" metaphors talking about it), Facebook is a public mall, Twitter is a public town square, etc. Living in the rear view mirror in this context is treating the new as though it is the old, when, the old is actually no longer here, and we are in totally unfamiliar territory, the effects of which we won't truly understand until it is gone. But, like most of his metaphors, which are aphoristic, it's convoluted and can be played on both sides: for instance, viewing the "things to come" lens means it's only natural that the TV would give us KZbin. He does accept that there are patterns that repeat. He does accept that we can project the future from the past. He warns us against the rear view mirror and sometimes encourages us to consult it. I suppose the reason the metaphor should be used, then, is that it reminds us that we are always in new territory whenever we are in the present, that while we should look at the patterns in the past, we should also question how the unfamiliarity of the present will tinge those aftereffects in the future. As for linear vs circular progression, this is a major theme of his research, yes. I think he would endorse a circular progression, arguing that linear progression is a result of literacy.

[@justinsmorningcoffee]

@@sameash3153 right, like the bicycle seat is designed like a saddle on a mechanical “horse.” We explain new things as updated or modified versions of the old. I wonder how this relates to the biblical idea of old and new “wineskins” - maybe “wineskins” that cannot stretch, or be flexible enough to accommodate the new will be too brittle and break? So maybe that’s like assuming the future will exactly repeat the past (like trading for a veteran thinking he’s going to hit the same this year as last year). This is a super interesting man, I know very little about McLuhan besides his famous “medium is the metaphor” quote