Focusing on the present

In reading Walt Whitman’s Democratic Vistas, I was particularly struck by his idea that we, as Americans, rely on the future. We assume that all of America’s problems will be solved in the future, that our predecessors will be more capable of righting wrongs and that, as current citizens, we have no obligation to protect, maintain, or improve the democracy that is America. Whitman argues that “what finally and only is to make our western world a nationality superior to any hither known, and out-topping the past, must be vigorous, yet unsuspected Literatures, perfect personalities and sociologies, original, transcendental, and expressing (what, in highest sense, are not yet express’d at all,) democracy and the modern”. Whitman argument is exceptional, but I have to wonder if we would even notice these Literatures if we read them. Because we are constantly looking to the future, we are unable to focus on the present and therefore are almost ignorant to what is happening right before us. In other words, we assume that these great Literatures will be produced in the years to come and are therefore blind to any such Literatures being produced currently. I think part of the problem is the feeling "I can't make a difference". We need to be encouraged and shown that we can ultimately cause a change. I think this will allow us to notice such Literatures. We will then focus on the present.