Looking Into the Future
After the completion of my series The Unit, I wanted to continue the story, taking off into the future when two of the characters' grown children would find themselves recruited for the unit's team of operatives. That creates a bit of a dilemma, of course. Just what will the future bring?
It was time to polish my crystal ball. It was also time to start asking my readers what they thought the future would bring.
I've been on this Earth awhile, and so have actual access to things from 30 years ago. As I chose to place the new series, The Unit: Gen2 25 years into the future, I began to look backward to what the past might reveal for the future. Remember when cellphones were the size of a brick, and all you could do was punch in a number to call? We now have cellphones that have more capacity than the entire computer science department in the university I attended as an undergrad possessed— much more. Now, you can call a number from your smartwatch.
My truck, purchased 20 years ago, has a stick shift. It does have a panel for connecting things via Bluetooth, but the connections are limited. No Sirius radio. No proximity sensors. I really wanted the stick shift, so that's a shoulder shrug. I just got a new truck, though, and am actually finding many of the bells and whistles it possesses distracting. The multimedia panel is almost as big as my iPad Pro. It can connect to my iPhone and play a movie, though I won't do that unless I'm just sitting somewhere. It has sensors that tell me if I'm too close to something front, back, and sides, though I've turned off the rear sensors because it will actually apply the brakes before I've got it fully backed into my driveway (doesn't like the garage door, I guess).
Doing a little research, I found that a cardiac pacemaker is now being developed that's the size of a large supplement capsule and is no longer surgically emplaced in the chest wall, but is guided up a major vein to the proximity of the heart. No long leads for the electrodes that shock the heart back into rhythm, either. Just four little prongs that hold the thing in place.
What will things look like 25 years from now? I have to take a SWAG (silly wild-assed guess) at that.
Questions posed to my fans on Facebook ask such questions as, "Do you believe there will be fewer or more extremist groups operating in the U.S. 25 years from now?" This is giving me not only a view of what others expect of the future, but also of what they're feeling now. Sadly, most shine a dim light on our society's future. Things, they believe, will be more difficult. Medicine less affordable. Jobs less rewarding. Extremism more prevalent.
Perhaps so. Perhaps that's what will make my covert law enforcement team more necessary in that future world. But I prefer to believe that there will still be those who will step up for what's right. My personal and simple guiding axiom of "do the right thing" will be a guiding axiom for others as well. It's not easy. It takes thinking outside of the box, a willingness to be different than the crowd, and careful research into how society is changing.
It was time to polish my crystal ball. It was also time to start asking my readers what they thought the future would bring.
I've been on this Earth awhile, and so have actual access to things from 30 years ago. As I chose to place the new series, The Unit: Gen2 25 years into the future, I began to look backward to what the past might reveal for the future. Remember when cellphones were the size of a brick, and all you could do was punch in a number to call? We now have cellphones that have more capacity than the entire computer science department in the university I attended as an undergrad possessed— much more. Now, you can call a number from your smartwatch.
My truck, purchased 20 years ago, has a stick shift. It does have a panel for connecting things via Bluetooth, but the connections are limited. No Sirius radio. No proximity sensors. I really wanted the stick shift, so that's a shoulder shrug. I just got a new truck, though, and am actually finding many of the bells and whistles it possesses distracting. The multimedia panel is almost as big as my iPad Pro. It can connect to my iPhone and play a movie, though I won't do that unless I'm just sitting somewhere. It has sensors that tell me if I'm too close to something front, back, and sides, though I've turned off the rear sensors because it will actually apply the brakes before I've got it fully backed into my driveway (doesn't like the garage door, I guess).
Doing a little research, I found that a cardiac pacemaker is now being developed that's the size of a large supplement capsule and is no longer surgically emplaced in the chest wall, but is guided up a major vein to the proximity of the heart. No long leads for the electrodes that shock the heart back into rhythm, either. Just four little prongs that hold the thing in place.
What will things look like 25 years from now? I have to take a SWAG (silly wild-assed guess) at that.
Questions posed to my fans on Facebook ask such questions as, "Do you believe there will be fewer or more extremist groups operating in the U.S. 25 years from now?" This is giving me not only a view of what others expect of the future, but also of what they're feeling now. Sadly, most shine a dim light on our society's future. Things, they believe, will be more difficult. Medicine less affordable. Jobs less rewarding. Extremism more prevalent.
Perhaps so. Perhaps that's what will make my covert law enforcement team more necessary in that future world. But I prefer to believe that there will still be those who will step up for what's right. My personal and simple guiding axiom of "do the right thing" will be a guiding axiom for others as well. It's not easy. It takes thinking outside of the box, a willingness to be different than the crowd, and careful research into how society is changing.
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