People live consciously, in the context of their past (i.e. always aware of their past) and aware of the potential of their future… This is something fundamentally different from other creatures. There are definitely many things that separate us from the animal kingdom; most see this separation as a good thing – progressive – some see it as destructive, either way it’s inevitable.
All languages that I know of, have developed a way to express past & future. Most major languages have, anyway; certainly every language that is commonly used in more than one country. Why? Why is this concept, this perspective important to so many people? Ok… thinking about this on an individual level – we learn from our past and hope for our future, but why so profoundly? There are those absolutely slave to their past and those whose despair of their future is so devastating that it leads them to do the most absolute and irreversible of things: ending their own consciousness, they commit suicide.
What makes that concept of future so much stronger than the affirmation of being alive right now?
Postscript
I read this cool article on How Stuff Works about animals’ concept of time.
Eclectic Explorations 