Monday, January 27, 2003

I like to think about the future

Sometimes I used to write little messages to my future self...

Like: Hey Future-Miel--Are you wearing all-metallic fabrics? Are they scratchy? Do you sleep without covers and pillows like they did in Star Trek?

Hey Future Miel--Did you fly to work today?

Ah, the 2000's...I know this has been said before but...what a disappointment!

Where are the jet packs? Where are the buttons you push to make your food come out of a little hole in the wall? Where are the crazy 3 foot high hairdos?



What I realized today on the way to mini-market in 2 degree weather was: This is it. This is the best it's ever going to be. This is the time when technology improved our lives right before it destroyed the earth and the water shortages and catastrophic climatic events began.

Maybe I have a future as a science fiction writer? No, actually what I really wish is to write some kind of fake-history/academic treatise in the year 2200 of the current era...

But it would be boring. It would be as boring as current academic treatises are. Of course, no one bothers with the sweeping historical work these days. It's all micro-history...such as Salt or Cod or The Street: Hell's Kitchen from 1894-1896.

Here's what the future historian would say (or rather what he/she will be thinking as she writes the history from her 5 foot by 5 foot allotted space on her special non-polluting ecological pad and pencil in the daylight hours because of the lack of fossil fuel while the water riot rages outside her window):

Those denizens of the first world (as it was called back then)...They had it SO good...They had it so good...Technology lengthened their lives, they lived in abundance, they thought about nothing but NOW.

But were they happy? No...They just complained and complained...

They saw it all coming--They knew they were headed for disaster. But did they do anything? No...What did they do as the disaster slowly descended around them? They shopped, drank from disposable cups, grew green lawns in the desert, left the lights on and drove giant polluting vehicles...

But she will love us. Historians always love their subjects. We will seem like children--lost children...This time will seem like a magical time, a time of innocence, of frivolity...where we lived in the present, dancing in the flames. She will both envy and pity us.

As far as complaining goes...Yes, of course we complain...People say: You shouldn't complain...What about the other people who have it much worse. What fools they are...Haven't they ever been to a place where everyone is poor and suffering. Have they never seen the beaten down peasant? They are resigned, they don't complain.

Complaining is for the privileged. Complaining takes expectations. Those who have it truly bad don't complain. It's the ultimate luxury.


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