Irrational Focus

I read this excellent article, written over forty years ago, about what life would be like in 2008: http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2008/03/24/what-will-life-be-like-in-the-year-2008 It's amazingly accurate on so many different fronts, although it did manage to get a few things wrong. This has inspired me to try to make my own predictions for forty years out in the future. We all need to strive for something and hopefully predicting the future is a way to turn my optimism into something more tangible. With so many great trends I should be able extrapolate out enough things that a few will ultimately turn out to be correct. So, I'll follow in the same writing style: It's 8am, Tuesday Nov. 18, 2048, and you are headed for an early morning business meeting. You hop out of your cave, waking to the rising sun to start your day. With the abundance of rules and regulations, most people find it easier to live in a cave, than to actually manage to live up to the strict building codes...

Of course it is. Our future is clearly determined by the path we choose to walk. And we humans -- as we all so well know -- have the capacity to rise above all other animals because of our superior intellect and civility. Of all our admirable higher-order attributes, none stands so far above our primitive origins than our innate ability to share. It is in those simple acts of selfless behavior that we truly rise above our animistic origins and make good on all of our internal might and potential. That is why it is such a treat, no, pleasure, when one of our fellows choose to go above and beyond just sharing. I mean, sharing of the possessions is enough, sharing of ideas is plenty, but those marvelous humans that we so love to encounter go beyond this all by not just idly sharing the good, they also choose to share the bad as well. Nothing is more impressive than someone willing to share their problems with you. Why, the other day, in a crowded downtown neighborhood, someone was clearly...