People are talking about trends, expectations, goals, aspirations, etc. As with the onset of any new year, our nature is to contemplate the possibilities ahead. This year in particular – it being the beginning of a new decade and one that has been so anticipated at that – it’s hard not to step into that rabbit hole with everyone else. So here we go, if you are already there, give me a second to catch up. If not, well, indulge the rest of us for a couple of minutes won’t you?
For me, 2020 brings to mind the future because growing up at the crux of generation x and millennials this year in particular was always referenced as being so far ahead into the next century. The next version of our reality, if you will – much more technologically advanced and all of that jazz, if you catch my drift. When I think back through all the things that have become part of our lives in my lifetime, yeah, it kind of does feel like the future. Give it a gander for a moment. Our lifestyles have become so futuristic in comparison to our parents and grandparents generations, for example.
Yet what really gives me pause is thinking about what comes next.
How many more things will have changed by 2030, 2050, or even beyond? If we are so lucky to still be here to witness them. I also think about those younger in spirit than myself who are able to recall even simpler times than those of my own memories and nostalgia. How must they be encountering this new decade from their vantage point? Lo cierto is that regardless of all differences we are all headed there together.
Rather than make this an expansive quandary about the future, let me instead zero in on what might soon be within our reach. Be that only in my most imaginative of fantasies or actually coming soon IRL. Think about bionic people. A hybrid of human beings and machines – equipped with our feelings and imagination and the efficiency of a robotic function. Or what about virtual realities more exciting that the real thing. There have already been a few productions of what this might one day be like. I would recommend watching that one episode of Black Mirror where playing a video game becomes so much more exciting than actually living in the real world. It’s a little trippy, if you ask me. That’s without even touching on how we will commute and communicate in the decades ahead.
I’m telling you, it is all pretty wild.
Uncertain too, and that’s the thing about time and history. Imagine all the things we will look back at in hindsight and understand in a completely new light 10, 15 years from now. I don’t think it is that we are losing or moving away from anything either. More like it’s a constant evolution that moves cyclically over and over again. The one thing that isn’t changing, after all, is our need to understand the world around us and the desire to make sense of it in our own individual ways.
Our view of the world is just that. Ours. We get to decide what 2020 and beyond means to us in our most private of thoughts and interpretations. I just so happen to be spilling a few of my own thoughts onto this screen right now. Ask me again at the onset of the next new year or even in 2030 and I can almost guarantee you my opinions will be completely different.
I guess that doesn’t really inspire a lot of confidence in the viewpoints of this author, but then again, maybe that’s where we are in 2020? Uncovering the smoke and mirrors and just finally attempting to share our own real thoughts and feelings.
Is that just me?