happy 2020

a couple days ago i heard the dj on the radio say, 'we are now living in the future but we still don't have our flying cars or our jet packs.'  at work a friend asked me to predict the next 20 years.  are you kidding, i said.  who could've predicted the past 20 years!

i do think we will get astonishing technology:  AI, automation & autonomous vehicles are being developed as we speak & they will transform our lives & everything we know, utterly.  how?  i don't know.  but i think of those early 1990s AT&T TV commercials 'you will' that predicted much of the tech that we use today.  what those commercials didn't do was accurately predict how the modes of tech would develop & change our lives & everything, utterly.

i do think we are living in the future.  how that future unfolds is unknown.  no one knows how things will turn out.  no one.  if i make a prediction i say that the near to middle future will be one of astonishing achievements & horrifying developments.  a cop out prediction, you say.  sure.  but the next few years will become a whirlwind of wild shit.

today is the first day of a new year of a new decade of a new millennium.  i don't have a crystal ball.  neither does anyone else.  i am more optimistic than i should be, i guess.  perhaps it is because i love life & i love the things of this earth, including its people.

so i'll go on into my late middle age doing what i've always tried to do: practice lovingkindness & forgiveness with a caveat of anger & disgust.  i don't do new year's resolutions unless those resolutions include eating more, drinking more, writing/reading more, & enjoying life more.

this is the future.

peace & love