The only certain thing about life is that we will eventually die, yet future uncertainty still troubles us. If only we could be more certain about our future, we could at least plan, prepare ourselves, and perhaps even change things to weed out aspects of the future we do not like and select those we do.

This debate aims to raise the question of facing the future as a realm not of uncertainty but of possibility, noting that life is a process we undergo.

In lifting the curse of uncertainty and in restoring a sense of possibility, this debate highlights the importance of recasting the relation between doing and undergoing. To do so, we must think differently about generations, not as sliced into layers but as wound together in an intergenerational braid.

Life is held in tension between submission and mastery, aspiration and prehension, anticipation and perception, exposure and attunement. It is often supposed that life is lived within generations but does not flow between them. According to this view, what passes between generations, described as a heritage or inheritance, is a legacy of information and resources, which provides the capital from which successor generations can build lives in their turn.

We show instead that the true possibility of life lies in the way each generation leans over the following one, bringing them together in a collaboration marked by both affectivity and care.