In my last three blog posts, I gave my thoughts on what the world might be like 30 years from now—overall, and specifically in terms of technology and the environment. That’s an important question for my first novel, The Lightning in the Collied Night, because most of the story takes place in the mid-21st century, and I wanted people who might read my book to understand why I’ve chosen to depict the Earth of 2054-ish as I did. In this post, I’ll dig into a related question: if you could find out what happens to you, and the world in general, in the future, would you want to do that? And if you did find out, and you didn’t like what you learned… what would you do about it?
You’ve probably figured out that question has something to do with the story in my novel. And it does—in a big way. My book will offer one take on those two questions. You might answer them differently. Let’s look at these questions from a personal perspective first, then from a global view.
I’ve often wondered what the future had in store for me. Sometimes I wondered about what would happen for a specific event; for example, was I going to make it through Organic Chemistry or Differential Geometry in college? Or, if I were to move from the Twin Cities, where I spent the first 25 years of my life, to Texas, how will that change the direction of my life? (As it turned out, it changed my life for the better—I met the woman I married there.) Or, if I were to leave my job with a large, well-known software company to join a tiny start-up, will that be good for my career and for me (and my family) in general? And I’ve also wondered about my future life in general terms, especially when I was younger. Nowadays I find myself taking life one day at a time, and viewing each new day as a gift. Although I have to admit I still wonder about some future events, such as, I wonder if anyone’s going to buy my book? 😉
These days I wonder more about the future of our world, and humanity. I’d really like to know what the world will be like, say, 30 or 50 years from now. It’s possible, with luck, vitamins etc., that my wife and I will still be around in 30 years. But it’s likely that my children, and their descendants should there be any, will be around 50+ years from now. I’d like to know if the world in which my progeny will live will be a beautiful and safe world, one that has found solutions to the many challenges we face today.
And I’m not the only one wondering about the future of the world, and the human race. Google something like “studies on the future of the world and humanity” and you’ll get tons of results. Oxford University even has a Future of Humanity Institute—and there are probably other, similar organizations. There’s many scholarly papers on the subject, such as Science, Innovation and the Future of Humanity. And of course, science fiction writers love to peer into the future and make predictions about the Earth’s, and humanity’s, fate. (More on that in a future post.) With my new novel, we’ll add one more sci-fi prediction about the future.
But how accurate are these predictions? “Time will tell.” It’s interesting to look at predictions that were made years ago about what the world would be like today. I found one such study, published 25 years ago, called Planet Earth 2025. A look into a future world of 8 billion humans. The first thing I noticed was that they nailed their prediction for the world’s population in 2025. According to the Census Bureau, the world’s population was 8,019,876,189 on January 1, 2024. Their other predictions seem fairly spot-on also… unfortunately.
That brings me to the question, “If I knew what my future would be, what would I do about it?” I often find myself taking actions based on my predicted future, whether my personal future or that of some or all of my fellow human beings. It could be something as simple as changing my diet or other personal habits based on a doctor’s caution about what could happen if I don’t make a change. On a larger scale, I’ve made decisions to contribute my time or money, or both, to causes that I believe will positively impact the future of humanity in my town, state, country or even the entire world.
Now consider… what if you had the chance to make a huge positive impact on the future of the world and the human race, but at great risk to yourself—even a fairly high risk of death? What would you do? Something to think about. And maybe something that could be part of a sci-fi novel. 😉
A question that’s related to the one above about what you’d do if you knew your future is, “Would you like to know when and how you die?” And if you did know, what would you do about it? I’m uncertain about that one. If I did know when and how I was going to change channels to Life: The Sequel, I could ensure that my affairs were in order, my loved ones were taken care of, and every item on my Bucket List had been checked off. But I think knowing when The End was coming would be a constant drag on me; I’d obsess about it and what I might do to avoid it. Kinda like what happened to Captain Pike in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. He found out exactly how and when he was going to get relegated to a beeping wheelchair for the rest of his life. He figured out a way to avoid it, and save the life of a young cadet in the process. But then his future self showed him what would happen if he didn’t allow Fate to take its course. It wasn’t pretty—think of it as a 23rd century It’s a Wonderful Life, but without Clarence and Zuzu’s petals.
So I guess I really don’t want to know when and how I’ll die. I think it’s better to follow some great advice I read or heard once: live each day as if it were your last. Don’t wait to get your affairs in order, tell those you love that you love them, and take care of those Bucket List items… like writing a novel, for example.
