We Live In the Future

In fact, we’ve been living in the future for thirteen years. When I was a kid (in the 1970s), I always thought of the future as the year 2000. Growing up with every year beginning with a 19, changing over to 20 just sounded so, well, futuristic. My friends and I used to talk about it. “How old will you be in the year 2000?” someone would ask. “Thirty five,” I’d say. Then the conversation would continue along the lines of “What will the world be like then?” and “What will we be like then?” Here’s our 1970s list of the things we expected to find in the future of the year 2000:

1. There would be flying cars. (Got that one from The Jetsons)

2. Every house would have a push button telephone.

3. All televisions would be operated by remote control.

4. A human would have been to Mars.

5. Robots would be common. (Again, think of The Jetsons)

6. Rock-n-Roll would be even more awesome.

7. There would be lazar guns.

8. Star Wars would have nine episodes.

9. Every home would have a computer.

10. Earth would have been visited by extraterrestrials.

So here we are thirteen years into the future. In some ways, we didn’t go as far as my younger self believed. In other ways, we’ve gone way beyond it.

1. Not only do we not have flying cars, now guys my age get all excited when we see a car from the 70s. Didn’t see that coming at all.

2. The push button phone came and went. Now I don’t even own a home phone.

3. Television sets have gotten much cooler than I expected. Television programming has gotten much worse. Didn’t see that one either.

4. The space program is one of the greatest disappointments of the future. Too sad to say any more about it.

5. After seeing Terminator, I stopped hoping for robots. This future is so much better than what could have been.

6. I stand corrected. Rock-n-Roll is the greatest disappointment of the future. Even sadder than television.

7. I recently heard about a lazar that can sink a ship. Better late than never…or maybe not.

8. So now Disney is making Star Wars episodes 7-9. I will reserve my thoughts until I see them.

9. Admittedly, computer technology has surpassed my wildest expectations. We really do live in the future.

10. Still no convincing evidence of visitation by extraterrestrials. Given the abundance of movies about aliens, you’d think ETs were landing on Earth every day. But like the robots of Terminator, most of the movie aliens are more terrifying than fascinating. That’s one of the reasons I decided to write the BLACKWELL series. These are the extraterrestrials you’d want to encounter.

Yeah, we live in the future. Good, bad, indifferent, it’s where we are. Still, it makes me wonder where we are going.