vahid v. motlagh
A couple of days ago a rather weird game was started in the Persian Blogsphere. The idea was that people, most of them very young, asked each other to write a letter to future generations. Fortunately I was invited too by a friend of mine. In my Persian weblog I tried to write down a number of thoughts:
http://vahidvmotlagh.blogspot.com/2008_03_30_archive.html#389994593189502183
Sometimes it does not make any sense or a difference to get clear about your time horizon and your potential audience, however, I preferred to limit myself to the next one hundred years and, as much as possible, do not differentiate between my would-be readers in any terms.
Below is an English translation of my letter to future generations that I like to share with you all my fellow futurists. Needless to say that any comment is truly welcome!
A Letter to Future Generations
I do not know whether I am still confined to this present hardware within which I am imprisoned now by the time this piece of information has been assimilated, processed and summarized by your local or global intelligent network. But I am almost certain that I will be peering over your shoulders when you begin to read and analyze the content of my words. I will be witnessing, somehow, the moment of linking my consciousness to yours and therefore the synchronicity of my presence with yours.
As long as our existence preceded that of yours we made enormous changes in our immediate environment relative to what others whose existence preceded that of ours did earlier. Most of what we accomplished to change served our selfish desires and were totally in line with objectives such as maximum convenience and minimum hardship. Some of us, as far as we noticed, were concerned about other kinds of existence too; those things that we did not get used to bequeath them a human being title.
When you were not just around to witness yourselves, we could have managed to find a number of solutions, not excellent in terms of your measures though, for many of our life issues and problems. It would have been more reasonable to consult you before any choice and action, however, we had no way but to define and direct our deeds and behavior on the basis of a host of conjectures and hypotheses that were seemingly true in our times about some near and far histories within which we were not present as eyewitnesses. I wonder if you finally have found some ways to discover the nature of these deceased realities. Have you been successful in refuting the too many, and often contradictory, interpretations of our cosmic, earth-bound, and human identity? Do you have, before your eyes and in your hands, an illusion, narrative, and fantasy-free version of reality as much as it concerns our and your existence?
When you were not just around to witness yourselves, we could have managed to draw some lines on the Earth's map to determine boundaries. Also, in our times we were used to some rudimentary, apparently foolish and static ways such as electing spoke-persons and representatives for a short term or in some parts of the world until their death, to set laws and better govern our affairs. As for the economy, we were accustomed to a pretty sophisticated establishment, which was based on the exchange and store of financial credits and the amount of our debts to each other. This establishment was, presumably, intended to properly show the value of our efforts and even ourselves. I wonder if you still respect those lines on the map we set, fought for, and even killed each others in vast numbers. Did you eventually figure out some more reasonable and fair ways to guarantee the dynamic and real-time involvement of all sorts of existence, no matter human or non-human, in the real world public decisions and choices? Have you laid the foundations of a system, except for the exchange and store of credits, to efficiently allocate the limited resources to your unlimited needs and wants? Or, on the contrary, there has been a major shift in the world itself and maybe your values system also, so that you already have unlimited resources with limited needs and wants?
When you were not just around to witness yourselves, we were extremely extravagant in our consumption of energy, material, and space. Speaking in all candor, we just could not simply learn and know the correct way of exploiting energy, material, and space to keep our life going on. On the other hand, we faced a strong and perpetual struggle with the time and its many constraints. I wonder if you could accomplish to tame energy, material, space and time as you wish or are still cursed to adapt yourselves to their intact and integral status?
When you were not just around to witness yourselves, there were a few of us who were able and willing to think deep and hard, the rest were simply followers. Those people who were not only intellectually dependent on others but also one might say they were not even independent consciously. Do you still live with an unbalanced minor percent of independent thinkers and too many blindfolded followers? Or have you indeed built a society in which you enjoy a homogenous and uniform mix of informed and independent individuals?
When you were not just around to witness yourselves, we could weather sufferings, hard days, and most agonies in the name of and for the most respected and sought-after word. That was love. Also, we used to begin many of our efforts and movements in the name and for the same word, love. I wonder if you have remained just like us, many steps behind what we describe and cherish as to be love in our literature, art, and poems. Do you taste a genuine love and live with it in a pure contact and everyday life or it is just in your dreams and far away from your hands?
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