The future is now

That’s right. You heard it here. Right here. Right now. Right here. Right now.

Ahem.

With apologies to Fatboy Slim of course. Maybe you didn’t hear it here first, but you will be able to point to here and say, “That’s where I heard it. Once. Before.” Say it with me (since I’ve certainly said it enough solo): the future is now.

No big news, right? Right. Mostly. Except, I think it important to keep our sense of wonder at things. Now, I don’t have a webcam; but if I did, my sister could see me and I could see my sister as I talk to her in Los Angeles. Right now, I can just see her on a choppy piece of shit dial up line. The sound is fine, but she moves a little like she’s doing the robot dance. This is a little unusual when we’re discussing the weather and such, but I roll with it. Other than that, the experience is just like on any number of science fiction shows on television that many of us used to watch, and say wouldn’t that be cool if…

Well, it is cool. But now we’re browned off if our connection is slow (see above), if the server is busy, if we can’t get high speed internet (see above). How fickle are we primates. It’s a well known fact that keeping chimpanzees (a primate cousin of ours) as pets is especially demanding as they need to have their activities constantly changing. They get bored easily. Remember kids, “Against boredom even the gods contend in vain.” Thanks to Nietzsche for that comforting thought. I wonder though, if he was doodling in his apartment, maybe thinking about Darwin, thinking about chimpanzees and perhaps thinking, “Against boredom even chimps contend in vain. Hmmm….that is not quite it….” And then in disappointment, maybe he scratches, “Ah, gods,” over his sentence; maybe ‘gods’ is near where ‘chimps’ is, and then a moment of, “Eureka!!” I’m not saying that’s exactly how it happened, but it wouldn’t surprise me either. Ideas come from strange places – that’s all I’m saying. I wouldn’t base a thesis on this theory, but ideas do come from strange places.

Like science fiction television. Which popularized some science fiction writing. Which was written from the point of view of, “Why not?” Parts of science are a thirst for knowledge, answering questions like ‘how’ or ‘why’. Science fiction is regulated only by imagination, which, as we all know, is limitless collectively speaking. Those Bluetooth dorks that we see walking around everywhere would instil awe in Angel from, “The Rockford Files,” if Angel was a real person, and if this unreal person could be somehow transported in time (or better yet, Bluetooth dorks transported back to a 70s television series available mostly on late night snowy motel television sets) and would certainly ooh and aah at the coolness (the unreal person’s imagined reaction, of course) of it all. Alas. At least we’re not all walking around answering phones by touching our left breast and answering questions about when the “away team” will be home for supper. Thank Christ for small mercies.

Still, it’s amazing. I can read my paper at home, on my computer. Pay bills the same way. Talk to friends and people a world away. You can get your eyes fixed so that you don’t wear glasses. Using lasers, no less. No one uses lasers in the movies for anything other than blasting each other or cutting Mr. Bond in two. There’s a version of artificial eyesight they’re working on, but that’s “old news”. Soon, some lucky folks will get their own version of artificial limbs that look eerily lifelike and will respond to electric stimuli from the brain. Need a new face due to tragic circumstances? No sweat.

They now know that common colds somehow contribute to obesity, and there’s a chance in our lifetimes that they’ll figure out how to “turn up” a gene so that people burn more fat and that the body properly regulates itself versus such things as diabetes. “Doctor, I would love to get more exercise, but I just don’t have time. Are you sure you can’t ‘turn-up’ the gene to 11?” Surgeries are being done more and more through non-invasive procedures. The US military would have preferred using “ray-guns” instead of slug-throwers to handle civil unrest in Iraq. Imagine: ray-guns are more humane than slug throwers. Lexus has a car that can parallel park for you – take that driver’s licence tester types! I mean, I’m just amazed. Amazed, I say, and I know I haven’t even delved all that deeply into all the cool things we're doing.

I said that to my oldest son the other day. I said, “Son, we’re living the future. The future is now.” He’s six. He looked at me like I had gone mad – like the lights were on, but no one was home. For him, looking at his Aunt a continent away was the most natural thing in the world. Completely and utterly normal. And why not? But I’ll show him someday. I will. Because we’re always going forward, always clicking along, and everything that we have will change: it’ll be different, it’ll be more future and soon he’ll be saying that people only used to dream of what we’re using everyday. Maybe then he’ll be kind to his old man and parrot my words back to me and say it: dad, the future is now.

You know what? He’ll be right. You know why? I’ll tell you the same thing I’ll tell him: son, against boredom even chimps contend in vain.