A brave new world
(Brought to you by NBC)

 

Over the years, I’ve written a few essays where I wander down the road of wondering how often fictional predictions create future development.

One of the best examples would be your cell phone. Sure enough, do the research and you’ll find that at least one of the pioneering teams involved in the earliest of mobile phone design says Star Trek was an inspiration. Captain Kirk’s communicator has a link to your first flip phone.

This all kind of crashed around me recently while watching 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (the classic Disney film from 1954) and then hitting the Star Wars Day of 2021.

The Nautilus from the Jules Verne novel was a prediction of an electronically powered submarine. Nicely done, Mr. Verne. But hardly a one-hit wonder, he has a few other thoughts delivered before their time. He wondered if electricity or light might be able to power a mission to the moon, and you can find solar sails now deep into design and experimentation. Just do some looking around, and you’ll find Verne suggested, furthered, and essentially predicted many interesting developments long before they arrived.

And for me, that has always raised a double-edged argument.

Are such efforts predictions of the future? Or, just by their existence, are they inspiring people to take the idea and run with it, therefore not predicting but actually creating the future?

It’s a solid debate from both points of view.

What can’t be argued is that surveillance systems and pharmaceuticals are just two places where we can see our present day described in overwhelmingly detail… sometimes overwhelmingly gloomy detail… generations ago. Technological advances of all kinds, from video calls to space travel, are arriving at prototypes and introducing systems that have definite connections to thoughts years ahead of the abilities to produce them. (Not everything is gloomy, mind you. Still, electric car, anyone? Our future can definitely be found in the past.)

Sometimes I wonder what type of event might trigger the unification of the world into a globally supportive and interactive place. Would it take an apocalypse of our own development? Do we need to be invaded—or at least undeniably visited—by alien forces?

Let’s shift things over a bit.

Tomorrow does exist today. Many of us just can’t see it, even though its existence is easy to imagine…

There are people right now writing scripts for movies, lyrics for songs, and chapters of books. But those will not be seen, heard, or read for a few years. When placed in those terms, that upcoming Marvel movies and Lady Gaga’s next album are being made today even though we don’t know what we’re going to be delivered tomorrow to enjoy.

Someone once described writing a book as telling a joke and waiting six months to hear someone laugh. Does that make sense?

Ok. One more step. Creativity can be a lonely place, filled with unrelentingly self-doubt. Simple question: Will anyone like this? Makes sense. (Right?)

Seeing the future and attempting to reach it… what we sometimes term as our visionaries… isn’t so far off. It’s risk taking. It’s lonely. It’s trouble-shooting and problem-solving and so much more, all while waiting six months for someone to laugh.

And yet, that doesn’t mean we aren’t presented with glimpses of the future every day. It’s in the books we read and the television shows we watch.

Somewhere, somehow, there are individuals creating the next thing that we can’t do without. They may be alone. They may be working in a group. But they’re there. Watching. Working. Creating.

You can get to tomorrow from yesterday. You just may need to wade through the self-doubt to get there.

Here’s to the future.

 

If you have any comments or questions, please e-mail me at Bob@inmybackpack.com