Tag Archives: future

Goodbye! and Hello!

This is the time of year when we look back at the previous twelve months. Hopefully it is with pride and not with regret. What’s done is done and cannot be undone. But it can be edited!

The world has seen changes, some for the good, some not so much. We have survived. But not all of us. We have said goodbye to many we love and I am sure a few we hated. That is the cycle of life. There can be no existence without death. People have gotten really good at cheating on so many things, death isn’t one of them.

In the fullness of time I believe we will be judged. Hopefully it will be on the best of us and not the worst. As a whole we are good people. But do we deserve what’s coming? Because it is coming. The future is now.

We have seen the birth of many. Children were born as well as ideas. Both will help us move forward. Because that is the direction we are all headed: to tomorrow.

The world has been here for approximated 4 ½ billion years. Our ancestors can be traced back about 6 million years. Homo sapiens (the present us) about 200,000 years. Civilization as we know it is about 6,000 years old. Industrialization is only traced back to the 1800’s. Then came the first computer, the first electric shaver, the first microwave pizza . . .

Everyday something new is invented, composed or thought of. The next step is always the most important one.

As a species we are still young. We have a lot of growing up to do. We still squabble like siblings with a toy. Hopefully we will grow out of that stage. But not, I think, today.

I look back with fondness over the last year. I have great memories of friends and actions that I am proud of. There were tears and anger and moments I do hope to forget, but I lived. I was a part of my life and I enjoyed it!

Now I am looking to the next smile, the next chuckle and the next sunrise because I am positive it is coming . . . Join me?

The World Of ‘1s’ and ‘0s’

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Humankind has spent its collective existence in fomenting revolutions. From the first tool in the hand of early man 2.6 million years ago to Bluetooth peaking out from the ears of our children, we have evolved.

We have rid the world of some diseases and created others. We have learned how to feed everyone and how to kill without being nearby. We have woken the beasts of hatred and avarice and we feed them well.

We had the Agriculture Revolution, the Scientific Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, the Sexual Revolution and the Computer Revolution. I am sure there is more to come in the not too distant future.

We crow about how much better our lives are and shiver in fear at what we have created. People all over the world go hungry and die of diseases we have cured simply because it costs too much to get current medicines and food to those in need and those in greed want more.

We have gone from living hand to mouth and growing what we needed to a society that is a gluttonous example of excess. So much of the world is hungry but there’re those who have more than enough to eat but do not seem able to share. And that New World? It is controlled by a chip. Ironic isn’t it?

In the first world countries we are surrounded by computers. There are computers in our toasters, our cars, our prosthesis. We are not alone, ever. That chip is listening and watching everything. And the language that chip, that computer speaks? It’s the ones and zeros. It’s a language that very few of us can speak fluently. That should frighten us.

Daily Quip

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Living for the future often means missing the present.

Honour

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Honour the past but

Live in the moment

Be who you are but

Prepare to be more

People around you

Help you to live

Allow you to grow

Be open to all

Accepting the moment

Now is just fleeting

To be will become

Then now will be gone

Forever the past

Just shooting from the lip!

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When I was child one of my favorite toys was a series of action figures known as ‘the Johnny West series’. They were a series of 12 inch articulated plastic action figures centered around a Western theme. I don’t remember the names of all the human characters but there were some figures I’ll never forget. There was Thunderbolt and Thundercolt: a Mare and her foal. Then there was the pony Poncho, and the stallion Flame. When all my friends were playing with Barbie and Ken I was much more interested in Johnny West and his family. They had teeny, tiny clothes as well as guns and all the kitchen utensils required for a campfire. There were saddles and bridles and all the accoutrements necessary for the horses. It was heaven for a child with an imagination!

Playing outside in the grass with my action figures stirred my imagination and I believe it is responsible for my love of storytelling. I was not an only child and I had lots of friends but I loved nothing more than playing in the long grass in the back of our yard, just me and my imagination.

I worry about children nowadays. Their imagination is not their own. It is force fed to them through video games and 24 hour television. You don’t need to wonder what it’s like to camp in the Amazon because there is a video that shows you what it’s all about! I wonder what will happen when our ability to fantasize becomes stymied. We are starting to complain nowadays that the new movies we’re seeing are all special effects with very little substance. On the other hand we are also seeing a lot of rehashed movies. The story’s been told 100 times with different characters and in different locales but it’s the same story.

I remember when a new movie was cause for excitement. It truly was something that had never been seen before. Now people pick apart a movie and tell you exactly where they got each scene from, because it’s been done before. I find that sad. What happened to originality? What happened to children playing cops and robbers or cowboys and Indians? What happened to imaginary friends? I remember climbing to the top of the hill behind my house and fantasizing that I was conquering the Alps. I can remember playing in a Creek near where I lived and fantasizing that I was an explorer in a section of the Nile that had never seen a white woman. Don’t you miss those days?

If we lose the ability to use our imagination our lives will become stunted. It is already showing signs of that. We cannot afford to lose fantasy and idealism. We need our children to dream, to have invisible friends, to carry the spark that we had when we were children. Never lose the whimsy. If we do I fear there’s no hope for a wondrous future.

Thunderbolt from pininterst.com