00:09 We Spend Most of Our Lives in the Future

00:11 Future in the Magazine for Youngsters

00:43 The Future Is Already Here

00:47 The Future Blocked by Barbed Wire in Our Heads

01:01 The Past and the Future Together in the Same Place

01:22 I Expect to Spend the Rest of My Life in the Future

01:27 I live in the Future

02:03 The Future Shines Through the Cracks in Space-time

02:16 The Future Already Exists Somewhere

02:42 But Who Am I To Say

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When I was a child, I used to read a magazine for young engineers and scientists. There were articles about what the near future might be like. I was a boy from behind the Iron Curtain. I could read about the Western world’s technologies and futuristic projections.

The magazine had many small, poor-quality photos. They featured Minitel – the French predecessor of the Internet. Japanese Maglev trains. The Concorde supersonic plane. Early mobile phones and video cameras with video cassettes. I started to understand that what one person thinks of as their future is another person’s everyday life.

“The future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed.”— William Gibson

The future isn’t spread evenly across the world. Sometimes, it’s blocked by barbed wire at the borders. More often, the barbed wire in our minds holds it back. Political barriers in our country fell long ago. Yet many people still refuse to move into the future.

In the mid-1990s, I saw the past and the future together in the same place again. I was in high school. Back then, graphic designers my age today still trusted duct tape and film on the screening table. They believed they could finish any job with those familiar tools. Even though a Mac with Photoshop had recently arrived at the DTP studio a few feet away.

“I am interested in the future because I expect to spend the rest of my life in the future.”— Charles F. Kettering

I live in the future. I read about it when I was a kid in the magazine. Supercomputers are so small that they can fit in our pockets. They can connect to each other. An invisible communication network is everywhere and spreads through the air. Pocket supercomputers can also connect to central servers — the collective brains of humanity. Cars and household appliances can now communicate with us. Vacuum cleaners can vacuum and mop themselves. Satellites in space help us find our way faster in heavy traffic. Delivery services deliver your order within hours or the next day. We don’t have to learn foreign languages to talk to people in other countries.

The future is unevenly distributed. We must stay alert and notice where it already shines through the cracks in space-time. Sometimes, you can see the future in a parallel time branch close to you. Then you can bring it to our timeline.

I’d like to live and see some of the significant changes in the future. I don’t want a flying car or wireless power transmission over distance. I’m perfectly happy when the car pays for parking on its own — no apps, no buttons, no hassle. I don’t need to choose a delivery method in an online shop. I’d like to get the results of the lab tests without having to call to ask for them. When the state fills in my tax return, I check it and send it off.

All these ideas of the future already exist somewhere.

But who am I to say…

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