The Future of Mankind

There are surely many great thinkers, 'Futurologists' I believe they are called, who are ready and willing to ladle-out their insights for you on the direction the Future may take. These experts are all highly qualified, no doubt, in crystal-gazing and tea-leaf reading and other, more scientific methods of seeing into those murky depths of time and retrieving for us, the public, their findings.

But I am not one of those experts.

In fact I don't even like tea and my crystal ball is at the cleaners for polishing.

However, never being one afraid to tread on thin ice, even when it is cracking and showing every sign of giving way and sending me for a sub-zero dunking in the water beneath, I have decided to jot my ideas on the subject of the Future, for the edification of all who may chance upon this page, hopefully leaving them (you) with a feeling of transcendent insight unlike no other you have ever experienced...

How's that for an introduction? Not bad eh? (Excuse my Canadianism...I can't help it, eh?)

So what of this future we have staring us in the face? We know all about the Past. The Past is, well, past and there is nothing we can do about it. It has been and now it is gone. Where did it go? it is over there, actually, sitting with a drink in it's hand by the ficus tree, and looking unwanted. Just ignore it. You don't want to encourage it.

And what of the Present?

The Present is all around us. For example, I look out my window and see Canadians everywhere, mired in the Present and dealing with it rather well on the whole. Not to get too nationalistic here, I'd say Canadians are 100% Present-oriented. Compare to the Irish, who are 20% Present and 80% malarkey. Or the French who are 10% Present and 90% wine and snails. Americans? Mostly chicken wings and pizza if my calculations are correct, but before I succeed in alienating my entire reading public, (which consists of one twelve year old kid and a senior citizen from Boca Raton who found this page by accidentally sitting on the mouse) I will move on my next point, The Future.

The question I am supposed to be answering in all this deviation, is 'what is the Future of Mankind?'

Well to put it succinctly, I don't know. Nor does anyone else. We may grow great, powerful index-fingers in order to accommodate our growing fascination with clicking computer mice. We may develop large, elephantine ears with which to hear better the conversations of people who are plotting against us. (Modern man is increasingly paranoid man, with the threat of terrorist plots it is, sadly, inevitable.) On the other hand we may wake up one morning to find our feet have atrophied and been replaced with some sort of wheels our bodies have evolved in order to transport us most efficiently, and dare I say, gasoline-free?

The possibilities are endless and I'm sure you can come up with a number of amusing ones yourself.

What of the Future?

It is important, that is certain. If we dont' know where we are going we won't know where we have been. If we don't know where we have been then we might accidentally fork-out eight bucks to watch all over again Peter Jackson's bad remake of King Kong when we could have spent the money more wisely on ten pounds of dental floss.

The Future is more, however than just a place-holder for where to find the Past and the Present. It is something, rather like a suit or a dress, which can be altered after you wolf-down a quart of strawberry ice cream and need to have your waistline taken-out about three inches. The Future is also something which is not set in stone. It is set in something more like silly-putty and hence amenable to ameening. (Is 'ameening' a word? Ask me if I care.)

So where are we?

We are at a crossroads. We can make the Future whatever we wish provided it is not too expensive and doesn't need house-trained. The Future is ours to mold, ours to shape and ours to determine. And not only that, but we can recycle it if we remember to put it in the blue-box on Mondays.

If you really want to know more about the Future you will have the chance, because, surprise! There it is, just around the corner...lurking there in the shadows...waiting for you to approach...ready with it's hand out-stretched...asking for spare-change.

Will you give any? Only the Future knows.