Golden Shores
Recently I wrote to a friend of mine telling him to fear not, for we are on our way to golden shores. "Golden shores" is my shorthand term for a better future, which is ironic, considering how little I actually enjoy the beach. Oh, I've had a great lost weekend or two in some dumpy little Jersey shore towns that would make great fodder for Tom Waits-ian dittys, but for the most part, I don't like the sun and sand gets everywhere, then I start to sweat (more than the typical sodden baseline) and I hate to use greasy sunblock and then my whole low self- and body image kick in. Oops, tangent there. What I meant to write about was the whole concept of a better tomorrow. Does it actually exist, or is a better tomorrow what people whose todays suck always tell themselves to look forward to. Makes you also wonder what kind of better tomorrow is the proper kind to have? Is it better to look forward to a long present form of existence, or hope for a brief life and quick painless escape to some other form of existence? Makes you also wonder about others' better tomorrows? Is the Arab myth of seventy seven virgins in an oasis actually valid, or was that some kind of agit-prop meme given to us by the same 'they' that long ago had us conjuring images of vodka swilling Politboro members hunkered down in dusty brown offices plotting only of our destruction for the glory of some runaway anachro-futuristic dream of nationalistic pride? If the meme of virgins in an oasis actually exists, what makes such a belief less valid than the typical cloud-skyscraper harp-playing dream of Christian heaven about which we Westerners are supposed to be dreaming. Do we even see our future in positive terms anymore, in this life or the next? I am not sure. Perhaps one of the consequences of living in the "future" that Modernism predicted is the death of the future itself. What is the future and why does it seem so hard to put down anymore on paper or on screen? Have we gone too far in our technological aspects that our shared social visions have no way of incorporating themselves into our dreams anymore? Where are we headed? Golden Shores? Virgin Filled Oases? Goo-filled egg chambers where our physical bodies can rot for eons while our minds are somehow bonded to wetware devices that allow our minds to exist in clockless presents? Who tells us what the Future may look like anymore, and do we have enough civic collectivisim left in our present to analyze and accept or reject it? If we're not in the Future yet, when will we be? What technological trinket now defines the future for us? Is it an interface? A propulsion system? A means of conveyence? A sustenance production method? An automaton companion whose emotions are the result of programmatic control? The Thirties listened to men like Gernsback, the dreamers of the Fifties took their cues from dreams of the Thrities, the Eighties added the proper circuitry and wiring to those dreams, in the Ninteties we raised antennae to the skies and added the ubiqutous communication necessary for those dreams. Where do we stand now? The proliferation of digital video and audio components now give that future the eyes and ears it would need to take over for us. Will we sign up when the future is completed, ready for us to join it? If, ten years from now, we are asked to join that Future that is forming out there in the mysts of Probability, what will our answer be? What happens to those who cannot trust the future enough to join it? Should it be joined? Can it be stopped? More to the point, who will control it? Government? Private enterprise? A not-for-profit confederation of creators and administrators? Will the future govern itself for us? Scarily, will it govern us? Can the human spirit actually comprehend and acquiesce to a future of socialistic collectivism? Can the future survive our present? Can we accept our future? Can we escape our blood soaked, gore laden past? As we sail to the golden shores conjured not just by our minds but by the minds of the giants upon whose shoulders we stand, what happens if we do not like what we see before we make landfall on them?
These are the thoughts that one simple metaphor inspire in me.
Stay tuned to find out more about what I actually think about...when I think about it.
Recently I wrote to a friend of mine telling him to fear not, for we are on our way to golden shores. "Golden shores" is my shorthand term for a better future, which is ironic, considering how little I actually enjoy the beach. Oh, I've had a great lost weekend or two in some dumpy little Jersey shore towns that would make great fodder for Tom Waits-ian dittys, but for the most part, I don't like the sun and sand gets everywhere, then I start to sweat (more than the typical sodden baseline) and I hate to use greasy sunblock and then my whole low self- and body image kick in. Oops, tangent there. What I meant to write about was the whole concept of a better tomorrow. Does it actually exist, or is a better tomorrow what people whose todays suck always tell themselves to look forward to. Makes you also wonder what kind of better tomorrow is the proper kind to have? Is it better to look forward to a long present form of existence, or hope for a brief life and quick painless escape to some other form of existence? Makes you also wonder about others' better tomorrows? Is the Arab myth of seventy seven virgins in an oasis actually valid, or was that some kind of agit-prop meme given to us by the same 'they' that long ago had us conjuring images of vodka swilling Politboro members hunkered down in dusty brown offices plotting only of our destruction for the glory of some runaway anachro-futuristic dream of nationalistic pride? If the meme of virgins in an oasis actually exists, what makes such a belief less valid than the typical cloud-skyscraper harp-playing dream of Christian heaven about which we Westerners are supposed to be dreaming. Do we even see our future in positive terms anymore, in this life or the next? I am not sure. Perhaps one of the consequences of living in the "future" that Modernism predicted is the death of the future itself. What is the future and why does it seem so hard to put down anymore on paper or on screen? Have we gone too far in our technological aspects that our shared social visions have no way of incorporating themselves into our dreams anymore? Where are we headed? Golden Shores? Virgin Filled Oases? Goo-filled egg chambers where our physical bodies can rot for eons while our minds are somehow bonded to wetware devices that allow our minds to exist in clockless presents? Who tells us what the Future may look like anymore, and do we have enough civic collectivisim left in our present to analyze and accept or reject it? If we're not in the Future yet, when will we be? What technological trinket now defines the future for us? Is it an interface? A propulsion system? A means of conveyence? A sustenance production method? An automaton companion whose emotions are the result of programmatic control? The Thirties listened to men like Gernsback, the dreamers of the Fifties took their cues from dreams of the Thrities, the Eighties added the proper circuitry and wiring to those dreams, in the Ninteties we raised antennae to the skies and added the ubiqutous communication necessary for those dreams. Where do we stand now? The proliferation of digital video and audio components now give that future the eyes and ears it would need to take over for us. Will we sign up when the future is completed, ready for us to join it? If, ten years from now, we are asked to join that Future that is forming out there in the mysts of Probability, what will our answer be? What happens to those who cannot trust the future enough to join it? Should it be joined? Can it be stopped? More to the point, who will control it? Government? Private enterprise? A not-for-profit confederation of creators and administrators? Will the future govern itself for us? Scarily, will it govern us? Can the human spirit actually comprehend and acquiesce to a future of socialistic collectivism? Can the future survive our present? Can we accept our future? Can we escape our blood soaked, gore laden past? As we sail to the golden shores conjured not just by our minds but by the minds of the giants upon whose shoulders we stand, what happens if we do not like what we see before we make landfall on them?
These are the thoughts that one simple metaphor inspire in me.
Stay tuned to find out more about what I actually think about...when I think about it.
posted by Javaris at
3:06 PM
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