Living in the Future - Nov 18 2025

 

Living in the Future

Nov 18 2025

It all seems so futuristic.

The gee whiz of it all,

like when I was kid

reading science fiction 

and their fanciful predictions 

seemed more magical than real;

too fantastic

to ever live to see.

Impossible, yes

    . . . but still

just imagine only if.

Magic,

the art of distraction

deception

and clever tricks,

sleight of hand

and slick skulduggery.

It only seems supernatural;

even better

the less you look.

Even though everything is magical

when it’s a black box

and you haven’t a clue how it’s done. 

Flying cars

and colonies on the moon.

Moving sidewalks

and computers on our wrists.

Robots

freeing us from drudgery

(if they don’t turn on us first),

and the sum of human knowledge

at our restless fingertips.

So it did actually happen

and almost as predicted.

Even the dystopians

who tried to warn us in their fiction

seem eerily accurate now.

So why does living in the future

not seem so futuristic?

Why do all these marvels

elicit jaded yawns,

get taken for granted

and old too fast?

And why has living like this

not made life simpler,

human beings 

better at getting along?

Happiness, it seems

is still a long way off.

It’s “complicated”, we demur,

reducing the pain 

of being alive

to a single imprecise word;

the complications

of human nature

the future hasn’t solved. 

Or never can.

Not when things changed

but we didn’t. 

Not when prehensile thumbs 

serving caveman brains 

push buttons they don’t understand.

And not when it’s in our nature

to become jaded, impatient, and bored. 

Moving sidewalks ended.

They walked on the moon

then never went back.

And computers in our pockets

went from wonders to curse;

could the brave new world

have turned out worse

for the better angels in us all?

Not when instant connection 

pushes us apart,

anonymity 

brings out the mean girl and bullyboy,

and instant gratification

leaves us impatient for more.

Abundance hasn’t satisfied

it’s just made us fat,

and access hasn’t edified

it simply distracts.

Meanwhile, the rich are getting richer

while the rest get less and less.

Don’t the computer geeks 

and tech geniuses know

that speed is over-rated

when you’re going who-knows-where?

Novelty

for its own sake

eventually palls,

the “new” no longer thrills.

Especially the older you get,

when you learn 

that what matters in life

is what always has before;

that technology

with its imperative

of sleeker, faster, more

can’t rescue us from ourselves.

We may be living in the future

but it’s really hard to tell.

This podcast inspired the poem:  https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/647-the-moving-walkway-is-ending/

The last time I remember being on a moving sidewalk was at the Toronto airport. I recall being impatient at its slowness:  not content to stand still, and passing people who were. I suspect it’s still there. But since I no longer fly I don’t know; it may very well have gone the way of the many others referred to in the pod.