Part 1
“There is not a particle of life which does not bear poetry within it” - Gustave Flaubert
The year is 2179. You dreamed higher and now live in a world that reflects the philosophy of those who were early, those who demanded more from the fragility of the human condition. Life expectancy is Higher, distribution of wealth, culture and humour are Higher. Enlightenment is global, EQ is Higher. Intelligence isn’t measured in IQ anymore. Family values are Higher. Hell, even the basketball players are Higher because nutrition is understood and taught at school.
You’re sitting on an iron bench in a park waiting for your grandmother to finish work. She loves her ‘work’. Why retire from your passions? Why would your grandparents give up meaning in middle age? Scientists combined Crispr and whole genome sequencing and gave the results to a ferocious AI. It cost as much as a saucer of milk, and eradicated disease. Lifestyle is health. Health is lifestyle. The only flywheel that matters.
The air is free of micro-particles, the water free of forever chemicals and the soil free of nitrates. You are free. Female representation is higher. Public trust in politicians is higher. The DAOS that govern are open-source. People vote. There’s a statue of Serena Doolittle, the first female President twenty yards from your bench where you’re sitting, watching the world tick over. Fish once thought extinct swim in eccentric circles in the clear water at Miss Doolittle’s feet.
.."Haven't you ever happened to come across in a book some vague notion that you've had, some obscure idea that returns from afar and that seems to express completely your most subtle feelings?” - Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary
You have a book on your lap. A real one. Made of paper. They used to be rare, but have re-found popularity, like some kind of phoenix rising from the flames of antiquity. Local government rebuilt thousands of libraries at the end of the 21st century. It’s never too late to realise the error of your ways. Even when those errors are hidden deep within a web of bureaucracy. Knowledge thrives, the convergence of art, science and technology carved into the DNA of existence. Reading piles are higher, child literacy is higher. Yoga, meditation, intermittent fasting and healthy sleep patterns are higher. A regular day for a nine-year old starts with financial strategy and ends with music lessons. Or is it the other way around? Education is focused on how to learn, not what to learn.
Happiness is higher.
Optimism is higher.
Creativity, curiosity, Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité.
Eat the rich.
...Somebody did?
Oh.
Good.
Economies transcend the dollar.
Geography means nothing, borders a memory. You are the sum of your environment and the people that parade around it like virtual quarks in a flamboyant thought experiment.
Artificial Intelligence takes care of the mundane. It was hard at first. To give up control. A hundred years of transformation, bickering and infighting tells very little of the pain. Many industries disappeared. Many appeared, they too replaced. Dynasties fell, institutions tumbled, epi-centres of control, power and wealth chased each other around the globe in search of ever diminishing supplies.
“You don’t make art out of good intentions.” - Gustave Flaubert
Algorithms couldn’t conquer culture or destroy art. How do you destroy philosophy, maths and language? How do you destroy imagination? How do you obliterate the human need for craft and creation from memory? This is a world of art now. Cubism, futurism and art nouveau on the streets, walls and coffee shop awnings. Graffiti fused with surrealism and pop art and The Barbizon School, the offices and shops that once moved the cogs of materialism and consumerism are now open-air extensions of the human condition.
Music, painting and sculpture. Cinema, literature and dance.
These are the currencies of the world.
We found our purpose.
But…people still remember ‘the Old World’.
The human condition is still fragile.
There are societal issues, infrastructure problems. Neighbours fall out. Hearts get broken. So do families. So do bones.
This isn’t nirvana.
This is reality. A higher reality. But reality…
“We must laugh and cry, enjoy and suffer, in a word, vibrate to our full capacity … I think that’s what being really human means.” - Gustave Flaubert
Part 2
…And if you want to get here, you’re going to have to fight.
Not with violence. With conviction. With thought. With ideas. With resilience and passion and patience and clear thinking, with the very damn essence of everything you are.
There is no free lunch. No slow walk to the promised land. Evolution comes for the many from the revolution of the few. You are part of the few, you have great responsibility, what happens next is on your shoulders, the result of your actions, thoughts, deeds, promises and mindset.
The odds are stacked against you.
It won’t be easy.
If this universe plays out ten times, you lose nine on the bounce. Make this one count.
Ask yourself… What are you up against? What stands between you and the Higher vision? Trillions of dollars and the status quo that doesn’t want change. Do you have the stamina to change a system that isn’t imagined, designed or constructed to change? Do you have the resilience to champion the fringe, to celebrate the small, strange, freaky outsiders in a popularity contest that favours mind-numbing simplicity? Can you inspire a population tricked into thinking one way, when you know it should be thinking another?
This is a Higher call to action, a wake up call. Wanting to change the world and making the world change are not the same thing.
If this universe plays out ten times, you lose nine on the bounce. Make this one count.
Aim Higher.
