In our evaluative faculties, which are nearly absolutely blind to both histories and futures, we account many choices or actions as ‘mistakes’. This is at once natural to our habits of thought, which are often clumsy, and overtly confused. For to truly understand what a mistake is, we would need to be able to see into time.

Recently, I was in a situation where, in tracking records, we made what seemed to be a mistake. Some of our initial assumptions were wrong. Yet had we not made this mistake, we could not have discovered they were wrong. In order to ‘get it right’ (in this very narrow context), the mistake was a necessary precursor to future understanding.

Many times in my life I have deeply regretted my ignorance, naiveté, narrow perspectives, and actions. I cannot say, however, which were truly mistakes… and which were the necessary precursors of futures in which I could otherwise not have participated. The temporal scope of evaluation is far too narrow to truly reveal to us what is a mistake, and what is necessary to achieve otherwise impossible results. And yet, our ordinary thinking seems entirely natural to us. But it is not. And does not succeed at its actual mandates, a fact reminiscent of our cultures, societies and technologies.