It’s to the author of a question like this one I’d ask – did you give this more than a second’s thought? A picosecond maybe. The priority tomorrow is the same as the priority today. That’s simply to get from today to tomorrow. Tomorrow it will be to get to the day after tomorrow. Long may that daily sequence continue. Inevitable this will come to an end one day. My hope is that I’ve got at least seven thousand more days to go. Seven thousand more sunsets. Seven thousand more sunrises. Free to write a lot more nonsense.
Tag: dailyprompt
Imagine the Future
Already did it. Breakfast cereal packets were so much more interesting in the days before mobile phones. Tony the tiger’s smiling face on packets of Kellogg’s FROSTIES were part of my life as a 12-year-old. Then that morning sugar rush wasn’t seen as a bad thing.
In late 1972, Kellogg’s ran a “Paint the city of the future” competition. I entered and won. Along with several hundred other children. The prize being a Tonka toy set.
Their toy models of construction trucks and machinery were made of heavy gauge steel. None of the plastic nonsense that children get fobbed-off with now. Would you be surprised to know that, at least a couple of the toys, I still have today. Somewhere in a box.
My picture of the city of the future is long lost. Or perhaps it’s sitting in some dusty dark Kellogg’s depository. Never to be see the light of day again.
Blogging for Change
Daily writing prompt
What change, big or small, would you like your blog to make in the world?
That’s a dippy question. I know our interconnected age is supposed to offer access to the world at each and every keyboard or touch screen but seriously. Sitting in a sea of content, bashed out with increasing frequency, only a fraction will bubble to the surface.
If you think you are indispensable, dip your finger into a glass of water and then remove it. Observe the hole. That sarcastic little saying deflates the ego. On a positive side it lowers expectations, so success then comes as a wonderful surprise.
The vast percentage of what’s written is forgotten. There’s more that is ephemeral in heaven and Earth than I might care to think about. That’s a good situation to be in. Time plays a part.
Recounting the number of artists or writers who were ignored in their lifetime but celebrated after a couple of generations down the line, that’s a big list. I suppose it’s not possible to know when a person’s words will be a catalyst of change. It would be nice to be as astute as say, Carl Sagan, and quoted endlessly. A league of thoughtful communicators that are memorable.
Striking that public resonance is within the bounds of a few. Personally, my scribblings are for me. If others like them then that’s great, it’s not the reason to scribble.
Wobbles
Imagine an alternate universe were gravity wobbles a tiny bit like the weather fluctuates. One day the bathroom scales say 140kg the next day they say 35kg. One day I can skip to work in record time then next day I’m like a lumbering elephant.
I guess if that variations were too rapid life as we know it could not exist. If the wobbles were gentle and predicable then it would be a massively different world, an alternative world.
Our week would be divided up differently. Heavy manual tasks would be saved for specific days. What would they be called? Motag – short for motion days. On the other part of the gravity cycle, it’s time to sit at desk or stay in bed. Call them Statag – short for static days.
Building cars, aeroplanes and trains would be might tricky. Over engineered for Statag’s. Super speedy on Motag’s.
Plants and animals would have habits that are as different as the human ones. Evolution would have shaped us to produce a form that we wouldn’t recognise. Like a short, rounded superman able to leap tall structures but only once a week.
A bigger question is what would the atmosphere be like? Buy a bigger barometer, I’d say. Would all the rain come down when the clouds got heavy? So many questions.
Embrace Curiosity
Curiosity killed the cat. So, it’s said. Fortunately, regardless of my appreciation of cats, I am not one to forgo curiosity. That’s a rotten phrase. Much like “children should be seen and not heard.” An irritating idiom. True, the idea of suppressing curiosity was fashionable at one time. Society was organised that way. Authoritarian regimes love this dictum. It’s there in most stories of dystopia.
I’d say, be open to the world. Why not be curious about everything? Fine, that can be irritating too. As the classic scene of a child in the back seat of a car on a long journey piping-up every five minutes – are we there yet?
I like travel. I like looking around the next corner to see what’s there. I’ve annoyed my partner a hundred times in this way. Maybe there’s something interesting just around the corner. How can we know unless we look?
What If We Brought Back a Dinosaur?
Let’s just say that the dino that I’d bring back, time machine permitting, would be the biggest vegetarian that ever existed. It would be downright irresponsible to bring back a meat-eater. Haven’t we seen enough excitable movies on the theme of what can go wrong? The last genetic recreation humanity needs is one that would like to eat us.
If reptilian brains had advanced as fast as homo sapiens maybe the world would be dramatically different. Still, they had several hundred million years, and they wasted the lot. Thus, there’s not much to fear when faced with a large slow-moving vegetarian.
As the planet warms, so there will be more habitable regions where big plodding 40-ton dinos can do some good. A spectacle for sure. And a way to reshape landscapes. Driving evolution in the wilderness.
Here’s a crazy thought. The permafrost in Siberia is melting. Carbon is being released into the atmosphere. That’s not good. Let loose a lot of ultra-heavy dinos across such a wilderness. Feeding on the forests. Fertilising the forests. Equally compressing and churning up the soil. That might keep some of the carbon locked up.
Lusotitan monsters[1] wouldn’t threaten humanity. They might be an asset as well as being fascinating. Large herbivores exist today. We might value them more in the sight of a large dino lumbering across the terrain.
Absolutely!
For some obscure reason my mind goes immediately to René Magritte. A painter who knew how to play with reality and illusion. “This is not a pipe.” A painting is not a pipe, but rather an image of a pipe. So, why not say so.
I could say that there is nothing that we can be totally certain about. Afterall, some deep thinkers imagine that we live in a simulation where nothing is real. Personally, I don’t go with that theory. It’s absurd in the sense that the next question becomes – who made the simulation? And for them, could they not be part of a greater simulation? That would create a Russian doll set that would go on to infinity. And we all have a problem with infinity.
Let me go for 10 things that I think to be certain within the bounds of my limited knowledge.
- My name. It gets used by those I met. Documents have it well recorded. My parents were consistent in using it. So, I’ll say that it certainly is John.
- Earth. The existence of the planet where I live. The ground beneath my feet. The physical mass that generates enough gravity to keep me here.
- Water. Now, I’m listing the four classical elements (Earth, water, air and fire). I depend on them every day. To walk, to drink, to breath, to keep warm in winter.
- Air.
- Fire.
- Space. A generic name for the huge expanse beyond the Earth. Even with no personal experience of Space, I’m certain that it exists. Its precise nature is another matter.
- Food. The existence of which sustains me. Without it I’d perish.
- My senses. My five senses – sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch.
- My size and shape. Measurements taken and recorded. Hight, weight and a proliferation of other dimensions. Not that they are static.
- My emotions. Facts aside, so many likes and dislikes, engage, distract, motivate and repel with such consistency that their existence cannot be denied.
Having produced this fine list, I will now press the big red button marked do not press. Is there any reason why I shouldn’t engage the infinite improbability drive?
Discovering Tomorrow
As an engineering guy who’s made a living out of technology (mostly aerospace) you may think that I’d pipe-up with the super shiny stuff that fills the pages of WIRED[1]. I know that’s a media brand but it’s a mighty strange name in a time when traditional wiring is falling out of fashion. My high-speed INTERNET gets to me by light.
Technology is an enabler. It’s not the answer. I’m not going to get terribly excited about “1” and “0” or even qubits[2]. Technology is a means to an end. Yes, it is transformative. We are where we are because of it. Technology opens possibilities.
I’m excited about ideas. It will be a light blub moment or years of hard work that will bring about the step changes that may make life in the future unrecognisable from today. Being a glass is half full thinker, I’m excited about how the human imagination will flourish in the future. I don’t see a dark sky and a dystopia of brainy robots marshalling us around. Even with our accumulated knowledge we are mostly ignorant about how the universe works. Be excited about the future because there’s so much to discover.
Music Genres
One way I could throw out a “smart” answer is to say – the one that hasn’t been coined yet. Let’s face it, going back a decade and more the list of categories was far smaller than it is today.
Why? It could be fusion. Where two types of music are fused to create a new one. It could be pure invention. It could be sounds in nature that we suddenly “discover”.
The audible spectrum for most people may not reach the highest frequencies that a good pair of speakers can handle but the range is there for an almost infinite combination of frequencies. Then there’s timing. Let’s just say that the potential of new sounds is still there despite the proliferation of different types of music.
Maybe my answer should centre around what’s on my phone. I’m predictable. It’s rock.
Long view
What are you most worried about for the future?
Our inclination to think of time without perspective. Short term mentality is an enemy. The thought that big problems are fixed by a wave of the hand is a human weakness. Attractive propositions are easily accepted even if their result is merely to delay or avoid the action that’s needed. Nature runs on longer timescales than our news cycles. If we are to have a future we need to take the tough road now and then.
John Vincent 