14 July 2009
Now Playing: The Future
Posted by robgraham under: Media Musings; Uncategorized .
As history has shown us time and time again, there are times when a society gets sick and tired of being sick and tired. During these times of revolution (like storming the Bastille on this day in 1789) the status quo gets turned on its ear and change is created – for better or worse is up to constant debate.
While I doubt that US citizens are on the verge if staging a revolt, I can say that personally after 8 years of wars, a seriously slumping economy and the fears (some valid some not) surrounding a terrorism protectionist culture, that I have had all the bad news I can stand and can’t wait to move on toward something more positive.
I mention this because as I picked up my mail today, I received two magazines, both of which heralded in their headlines, futuristic themes (Fortune and Wired for those of you keeping score at home.) I find this significant, not that magazines are thinking about the future, but that more and more onus for great technological, social and financial breakthroughs seem to be off a ways in this place we call the future. If you look around, there is a lot of news recently regarding future events – exciting, positive and life changing. The problem is that none of them seem to be happening now. In fact, just about every news story I read about the present seems so focused on what we don’t have and can’t do now that it seems counterproductive to read them.
While I’m hoping that 2010 will be more comfortable that 2009 has been so far, I also have to acknowledge that I don’t live in the future-yet. Instead, I need to be part of the solution that makes that future become the panacea that we’re all hoping for.
While I have no evidence that this is the answer, I’ve decided that my path to the future is going to be based on avoiding the negativity that threatens to kill my bliss almost daily and instead to find great examples of what’s going right, what‘s new and exciting, who I really like to spend my time with and how we can all work together to make the future even better than what the pundits are projecting.
In short, the future doesn’t give a rat’s ass if I’m personally happy or successful. That’s my job. If I can envision this outcome then I can make it true (although the odds are good that I won’t do it by myself) by focusing on what I can do to make the world a nicer place. But I can’t wait for the future; I’m getting started now. Feel free to come along.