It took the human race another couple of decades of failed negotiations, blame-games over climate change, wars over water, mass extinctions, and millions of climate migrants to finally realize that we are all in this together- for better or for worse! Governments caved in for an international pooling of resources and collective decision-making for the ‘common good.’ Our grandkids hardly understand what ‘nations’ were and what exactly did borders guard. They often ask, were men and women enslaved by their ‘national leaders?’ If not, then how could 7 billion ‘free’ individuals ignore nature’s cry for help? I sometimes ward off these questions by saying, ‘You kids won’t understand our times’ but then I am left alone to ponder, why did we push the snooze button on all the wake-up calls?
Oxygen and Water are still our primary concerns, those humble cotton masks you wear will soon be replaced by portable oxygen masks. Turns out you can put a price on every single breath. Food and Nutrition have been redefined. We now consume tablets and potions tailor-made for our bodily requirements. Humanity (and its evil offspring, capitalism) could no longer be trusted with gluttony. Each ‘Citizen of the Earth’ is scanned at birth for all potential genetic and environmental diseases. Ze has to adhere to a strict protocol derived by AI to maximize life expectancy. (Yes, we finally ended the age-old gender debate, He/She was replaced by a singular pronoun, Ze)
As you might have guessed, we deconstructed our society into a ‘gender-neutral’ world. We are free from all gender conditioning and social roles. Individuals are valued purely on their talent and intellect. I sometimes miss the hustle but it’s all for the best. We, as humans finally took a stand to leave nature alone, to restore itself, and if possible, rectify our mistakes. But trust me, your actions today will leave the Earth in a state of agony and revenge. We are still re-paying our dues.
The only crimes we hear now are cyber in nature. Since our entire life is online from health to education to investment to relationships to identity. Owing to cryptography, Privacy is not a myth anymore, it is the most valued right of the citizens of Earth. Honey, could you please get over your fear of technology and national laws; and invest in Bitcoin. We all knew in our guts that governments have lost significance since the 2020s itself when the world watched its national leaders fail the Earth. But the last nail in the coffin was none other than ‘Satoshi Nakamoto’ zeself.
The revolution in Education was the most exciting to witness. Without governments, people realized that we need to train our young to lead and not to merely follow. As information was aplenty, we redirected to focus on emotional intelligence with the environment at the heart of every subject. Young lads today don’t know what rote learning is, but their unleashed potential surprised us all. The ones who excel start with uncovering every crime we committed against nature and then move on to finding solutions to restore and forge ahead.
The placebo of the masses is no longer necessary. With a highly controlled population of just one million, each individual is expected to rise to save the Earth rather than just waiting around for a savior.
We eat less grow more
Talk less ponder more
read less think more
live less and die more!
Sometimes I feel like one of the devices that surround me. The stories and ideas that made us human are no longer sold in the marketplace of souls. Love, Hate, Sadness, Joy is alien to us. I think we underestimated how important the idea of ‘God’ was to our social fabric. It brought down with it the institutional pillars of marriage, humanity and crippled the zeal that came with belongingness to a region/faith/nation. In a sense, life is much simpler now but I really miss the theatricals!
Living up to a 100 is the norm not the exception anymore. Our shrinking gene pool and heaping vulnerabilities did not stop us from beating the odds! Well, it’s anyways all about utilizing the scarce human resource to the maximum. We chose quality over quantity. I am going strong at 65, with a quarter-century more to go before retirement age. Who knows if we keep at it, I would live to see the Earth restored again by 2100! I hope the future generations will remember us not just by our pitfalls but also by our sacrifices. With the advancements in geo-tracking, we can’t even hope to fabricate our environmental history Digi-books!
Signing off
Abhilasha Shibu
P.S. give UPSC CSE another shot for me 😊
Chasing Sunsets 