Almost December! A new year is already on the horizon, only weeks away.
I remember when I was a kid, probably about 10 years old, swinging on the swingset at my elementary school looking at the Coast mountain range. I remember that one clear, Fall day looking around my world, taking in my domain of monkey bars and sandy playground, peering over the neighbour's horse pasture as I swung to and fro. Must have been the early 1980s- everyone had sticker collections and traded this glittery one for that puffy one, or E.T. stickers for My Little Pony stickers. Sipping on juice boxes, huddled in little groups against the white stucco school walls, hungrily flipping pages checking out every collection of sticker ever created. I remember that I thought right then about what would the year 2000 be like. How old would I be then? I counted in my little head how old I would be- 29 whole years old, I would be by then. Wow, I would be OLD! What would THAT world be like? What things would the year 2000 have?
Funny, but an oddly sensible thought to have had at that time and one that recurs for me from time to time. I was watching the late news the other night and they celebrated some birthdays for some seniors that had reached 101 years old. That was my moment of reflection- the moment that made me think "what did SHE see in her lifetime?" Think of all the amazing, amazing changes that happened over her lifetime from 1913 to today. Starting life in a place that likely had no telephones. No televisions. No refrigerators? No deep freeze - would they have had a radio!? Good lord! Truly the changes that have happened with technology in 100 years are mind boggling and I think wow, what will my daughter see over her lifetime. What will her hundred years be like? Or mine? Or yours?
If we look not just at the technological advances but the human advances in that time- medically. Socially. Economically. What did WW1 and WW2 change for that 101 year old and what impact will the wars in Iraq, conflicts we have seen with Hussein, with Bin Laden, this fighting with Isis- what will those do to shape our world in future years? Border security, privacy laws, terrorism- these are all very new realities for our generations.
I'm a little behind, admittedly, because I just recently watched the first Hunger Games movie. Someone commented how similar it was to Logan's Run and sure, there are actually several literary references that we could argue have similar futuristic story lines that touch on oppression or restriction, regimented living and dictatorial rule. Stories of dystopia. I watched the HG thinking truly, if my frame of reference was that of someone today from a third world country looking at first world conditions (living in excess, food waste, our entertainment world) we must look like those colorful masses of high fashion people living the high life while the others toil and struggle for day old bread if any food at all. We live at their mercy. We serve for their entertainment. They watch us on TV. Don't we do this? Don't we watch news story after news story of famine, disease and natural disaster and tsk tsk that those people have it so hard? It's an ever changing world. Where is it all headed? What will we see?