I won’t go in depth with this complicated character, but consider these words:
先に (saki ni: previously, beforehand, formerly) previous
We’re looking back on the past.
先日 (senjitsu: the other day) recent + day
Here 先 means “recent.”
先見 (senken: foresight, anticipation) ahead + to see
Now we’re looking ahead to the future.
I think the matter boils down (at least in part) to the way the past precedes the present and future. If we imagine these points in time as laid out on a train track, we can visualize traveling through the past before reaching the present and future. Although the past is always behind us, it’s also ahead of everything else, because we arrive at the past first. Mind-blowing, no?!
It reminds me of the paradox that William Wordsworth presented in the poem “My Heart Leaps Up When I Behold.” He said, “The Child is father of the Man.” That is, we can view a child as an egg from which the adult will hatch, the seed from which the flower will grow. In that sense, the child gives birth to the man who will develop in later years.
We seem to have drifted awfully far from kanji at this point!
