Wednesday, June 30, 2010

The shape of things to come

‘Gentleness is being selected out of the population in unpleasant ways these days.’


By JOHN REMBER

Predicting the future is an iffy business. We think we're at the cutting edge of history when we're right in the middle of it. The trends we identify serve more as an indication of who we are and what we're interested in than anything that will happen 20 years from now. But we do change, and sometimes radically.

If I could have a 10-minute talk with the person I'll be in 20 years, I'd pay him my annual salary in Federal Reserve notes just to find out who I'm going to be.

I hope he'd take the money. I hope he wouldn't want a gold watch or a silver fork or a bag of walnuts instead. Or canned pudding. If he'd want canned pudding that would mean he wouldn't have teeth anymore, and was hungry.

Whatever he wants, I'd pay it. But I'd start with hundred-dollar bills.

Then maybe he'd tell me about the Great Migration, when everybody in the Gulf Coast states moved north, about the same time the Libertarians took over the Western States Federation, dissolved the provisional government and put all the governors and congressmen and senators to work digging free-market potatoes.

I'd tell him I really don't want to know about politics, I just want to know about what happens to me. He'd snort and giggle and say, "What's to know? You're old. Old and decrepit. You think your brain is stored in a hard drive somewhere and you're going to live forever as ones and zeroes? They tried that. It destroyed the brains, and it didn't do the hard drives any good either."

"That's not what I mean," I'd say. "Will I be happy? Will I be rich?"

"Where you're concerned," he'd say, "what will be, will be. You were never what I'd call a player on the stage of history. Sure you don't want to know about the Eastern Idaho Glow in the Dark Zone? The Chinese-Brazilian Empire? We're part of it, you know. Actually, we're part of both of them."

"I'd like to know what to do with my life," I'd say. "And maybe some stock tips."

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"Stay out of stocks," he'd say. "The only kind we have anymore is the kind they lock you into in the public square so they can throw eggs at you. They're usually out of eggs, so they throw rocks. The rocks hurt, and you have a stiff neck from sitting in one position all day."

"What should I do? I paid you all that money. I want some answers."

He'd shake his head.

"The things I do for toilet paper. OK. You want to make yourself useful? Here's a list of some very bad people. In your time, they're still running around without their security details. Nobody knows they're evil. They haven't killed millions of people yet. I want you to see that they get into the art schools they've applied to. Or are hired as county zoning inspectors. Try to talk them out of working for Goldman Sachs."

"You're scaring me."

"Kid," he'd say, "you don't know what scared is."

"What can I do to make you a happier and gentler person?"

The question would rock him back on his heels a bit.

"Let's focus on the happy," he'd say. "Gentleness is being selected out of the population in unpleasant ways these days."

"Happy," I'd say.

"Blankets," he'd say. "Buy me a bunch of blankets. Enough blankets, I'll be rich. You can trade blankets for cheese. Seems like everybody wants a blanket. Reminds them of when they were kids, dragging their binkie around the house. So Costco's still around, right? See if they have a special on blankets. Buy me about 50 of them. Wrap them in plastic and put them in the trunk of your old car."

"Then what?"

"Then nothing. I'm living in that car. I'll just go back and open the trunk and Bingo! Binkies for all my friends. At least the ones with spare cheese. I'll keep one for myself."

"You don't even have a blanket?"

"Binkies are hard to come by. And it's tough and cold without them. Remember when we were a kid, running around our parents' house, using our binkie like a cape, feeling secure and protected, wrapping ourselves up in it and thinking we were going to be safe and warm forever?"

"I don't remember that."

"You will, boy," he'd say. "You will."




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