ever wandering mind

One could argue that thinking and planning is only a reaction to environment around you.
There is a bit of truth in that undoubtedly. When on work, you do what the boss tells you to do. Or when jumping into a freezing lake, your body tells you to get out fast, but the signal to your receptors comes from outside.

What amazes me most though is that we think in a (some incomplete) language, we were thought from the outside world. Now think of the deaf people, how do they think, with geometrical shapes?

I truly believe that we are bound by our brains processing of the physical. All the methods to see something different, are tools to be used methodically to help nurture us into evolving. I'm fascinated with the idea of the Penal Gland.

As for thinking about the future, it seems that is the wrong direction. We only should reason and plan when it comes to survival, and lets face it, modern life, socially, has alot of subject matter that serves no human usefulness. In fact I would say that we are unaware how to progress at the most basic levels. Thats what causes are healthy reactions to reject the "normal".

It may be the case that, since we can trace causes and events in the past with hindsight, we make an assumption about the future resembling the past in that way. But perhaps we only trace some events when our attention is focused on them, or that we select those in particular because they are traceable.
Of course, our understanding of past events in which we participated and by which we assume the future is predictable in the same way, assumes that we correctly identify the causes and effects of these occurrences. What if our account is at best only---plausible?

We want to know, even if we can look backward and see that events were "determined" why the future operates in the same way. Are we perhaps, moreover, mislead by a crude conception of scientific law that makes cause and effect iron-clad in its results instead of a guess that is very highly probable? "The sun will rise tomorrow" is not absolutely guaranteed. And can scientific law about the operation of physical bodies be extended to the world of human occupations and preoccuptations?

We make plans, devise strategies, develop simple or highly complex projects. These are based on our knowledge of how the world works, but at the same time, don't we always "hedge our bets" with conditions about dependencies of one thing upon the other.
We plan to meet a friend at a certain place and time. "I'll see you there" we promise. Now of course, we can break our promise in a spiteful manner, or decide to do something else entirely at that time. Yet, isn't it always that promisses about performing simple actions in the future usually contain some provisions? "Unless it snows," "unless I get pneumonia","unless I am called in to work. And these are considered "legitimate excuses" by both parties because they understand that plans are subject to outside forces beyond one's control. Where does predetermination fit in here?