Parallel Worlds

In my little world everything is either Clay Aiken or future related. So here is today's parallel-world example.

Voice of America covered the World Future Society's conference this summer, and here is their little story: Futurists Consider Trends, Look to the Future.

An American inventor once said, "We should all be concerned about the future because we will have to spend the rest of our lives there".

With that in mind, perhaps, an international gathering of so called futurists, attended the annual conference of the World Future Society recently, to discuss their views and concerns about tomorrow's world.

VOA Paul Sisco reports.

At least one of our members complained about how our organization is being cast in a bad light in this news clip, that it makes us look like a bunch of eccentrics. [Substitute "futurists" for "Claymates," and you'll see what I'm getting at.] It's actually a professional futurists' listserv where the angsting is taking place - you know, one of those insiders' back channels.... [this should sound familiar to hard-core Clay fans]

This is the second time that some less-than-fabulous publicity popped up about our organization in the last few years, but I've learned so much from being a Clay fan that it's easier to get some perspective.We get so little mass market attention that, when we do, we're super-sensitive to what is being said about us. I think we Clay fans can be the same way. I want every single passing mention of Clay to be about how fabulous he is, but that just doesn't happen.

The reportage about the futurists' conference, to me, was fairly neutral, and obviously done by a reporter who had no clue what futurists are about. "So-called" futurists do not stand up and tell you what the future is going to be like. We show you ways that you can be prepared for what may happen.

The diversity of our membership, the diversity of points of view, actually facilitates that understanding. Clay fans discuss all aspects of Clay's life and career, bringing their own values and filters and experiences to the discussion. And that's what "future fans" do at WFS conferences.

That's one reason I've always thought of Clay as a poster boy for the Wild Card scenario (a low-probability, high-impact event). We watched him jump head-first into the deep end of an unknown future, and what an adventure it's been!

Getting back to the VOA clip:

It’s not bad at all, just a little superficial. The “Jetsons” theme beginning and ending is very typical of what non-futurists think our field is all about. It’s one reason we did the Sci-fi theme in the September-October issue of The Futurist (which also mentions the Jetsons). It’s a popular hook, and we just have to deal with that. A phrase like “so-called” futurists just shows the writer’s lack of awareness, like people who still use a term like “so-called greenhouse gases....”

The point the video reporter makes that futurists don’t know exactly what will happen in the future is the same point we make ourselves. The fact that the future is unknowable is the reason we work so hard to understand trends, wild cards, forces of change, and so on. The expectation is common among non-futurists that futurists are supposed to come up with a pat answer to the question, “what’s going to happen in the future?” This video showed that this is not what we do. It also showed that we’re a diverse group of people who approach the study or understanding of the future from different perspectives.

The lack of real content in the video (other than the interviews with WFS communications director Patrick Tucker and conference chairman Nat Irvin) is just because it’s only a couple of minutes long. For what it was – a mention of our work and a sampling of the people who do it – I thought the piece was fine.

Futurists, like Clay Aiken fans, are passionate supporters of something in a world that seems often indifferent if not downright hostile. We want everyone to agree with us that the Future and Clay Aiken are incredibly interesting and important and worthy of universal attention and support. But sometimes we're the butt of a joke. It hurts, but that doesn't make what we support less important, less interesting, or less worthy of attention.



love, hosaa
inspired anyway

aka Mom

Marjory J. Wagner (aka "Aunt Irish" to my Dad's family, aka Mommahosaa, as she is known among my Clay friends) passed away on Sunday, August 3, 2008.



This falls under the category of Unexpected but Not Surprising. The move to long-term care at the nursing home wasn't because her fractured hip didn't heal, but because her emphysema and weakening heart made the physical therapy untenable. She knew she would never be able to take care of herself, so she accepted her "prison" with better humor than I expected.

In fact, she'd been doing pretty well. Her former interests interested her once again. I'd brought her an old abandoned needlepoint project. We talked nearly every evening, about an hour, usually about nothing in particular.

I laughed when she started complaining - about other people who complained so much! I was lucky to have the last few months of her undivided attention. The alcohol that had been taking away her memory, her personality, was out of the picture (even though I know she still wanted it).

She knew what was coming. She died exactly as she said she would: an apparently massive heart attack and relatively little lingering, just 17 hours.

In looking through her things for photos to display at the funeral yesterday, I found some note pages she'd tucked away. She wrote these words as her younger sister was dying in 1992:

I'm watching my sister die. She is three years younger than I. She is much more intelligent, more educated, and a much nicer person. I watch her gradual fading away - wondering at the tenacity of the human spirit. She has planned everything - giving her faithful daughter power of attorney, disposing of all she owns to her two children.

As I watch, giving whatever comfort and solace I can, many questions plague me, making for often sleepless nights. She has always advocated a "living will" - no special efforts by man or machine to prolong life. Yet, I see her frightened with each traumatic episode - concerned that each medication be available as needed. I see the terrible stress put upon her loving, faithful daughter, who is taking care of everything, fortunately supported by a loving, understanding husband.

She cannot recover - the damage of heart and lungs is too severe and is only progressing to an inevitable end. The cost of this gradual dying prodcedure is astronomical. Not just the cost in drugs, therapy, hospital, hospice, nursing, ambulance, etc. - but the cost in stress and anxiety, and cost to those who love her and make such efforts to support and sustain her.

One of these days, my turn will come. My loving and supportive children are on the other side of the country, engrossed in their own lives as they should be. Will I be so afraid of death that I will imperil them and their future? Can I organize my affairs as reasonably as my sister has? Can I find a way to die without inflicting such trauma and burdens on those I love?

I love my sister and do not want to let her go. But I know she will fairly soon - and I hate the watching and waiting - and what it is doing to those she loves. She is the kindest, most unselfish person I've ever known. How miserable it must be to die so slowly, inflicting such pain on the children she loves above all else.

I think that must be one of my reasons in retiring cross-country from my children. In spite of my spend-thrift ways, I don't think I will ever be dependent upon them, although they may not inherit much. My health insurance and annuity should take care of my needs - and if I should become "terminal," I pray I will have the gumption to end it quickly somehow.

These morbid thoughts haunt me, affecting my usual joy in life and all that it still offers. I must cling to my own life plan, give what I can to my dying sister and her children, and leave a little to subsist on for the sake of myself and my children.

Somehow, I must not only cope with these concerns as an aging person among those in the prime of life, but must somehow do this whole bit gracefully. It seems as though my contemporaries are dropping like flies. But I am still relatively healthy and active. I must not allow these concerns to impinge upon my work or on my relationships. If I do, I will negate my lifetime philosophy - keeping private and hidden any problems or grief rather than inflicting personal problems on others.

I suppose I'll always be one of those who "gripe" and "complain"; but hopefully those who know me realize its lack of meaning. This is a difficult period for me. Hopefully I will survive intact.

My aunt died in 1992 at the age of 64.

Mom outlived all of her siblings, my father, and his siblings. That was painful to her, too. It's hard to understand why she didn't feel that her longevity was a success story. But her life was so full that I think this is what depressed her most about growing old. She couldn't do all that she wanted to. And when you're active all your life, inactivity equals death.

I'm sad but not devastated. I know I did what I could for her. Maybe even too much - it's hard for an independent person to accept help. She said I worried too much, and she's probably right. But one thing I know now that I should have known all along:

No one will love you the way your mom does.