This just in from Vince Dinglelint, reporter at large, reporting somewhere, from an undisclosed time and location in the future.
Part 1 of 3 concerning: What happened to Homo Sapiens? Recent speculation broached within this discussion group pertaining futuristic Star Trek-like societies typically predict that further advancements of technology will whittle away at all of the mundane utilitarian tasks our forefathers were forced to perform. On a most fundament level we ask ourselves: Is this a good or bad thing? I, too, occasionally wondered what it might be like to live hundreds of years in the future when most of our basic requirements concerning food, clothing, and shelter become ubiquitous. What, then, would we as a society do with ourselves? What would I do? In a serendipitous way I got an answer to that question when I foolishly agreed to be transported 1.2 million years into the future. Why I agreed to this misadventure is fertile fodder for another story. An entire book could be told if I were so inclined, and perhaps I'll get around to revealing a few of those misadventures in future installments. Suffice it is to say: My excursion to a Brave New World didn't go according to plan. To this day I still have no comprehension as to exactly what it was that I met during my brief trip into the future. I still don't know if it was an "it", or a "they". What I do know is that very quickly whatever it was that I encountered, "they" stripped away my identity; the essence of myself, my soul if you will. The essence of "me" had been laid bare like a flayed trout fished out of a stream. Unseeing penetrating eyes dissected every internal organ of my innermost psyche. Invasion of privacy was not a concept "they" comprehended or cared to observe. Fortunately, I suspect "they" took pity on my distress because "they" promptly sent me back to what was presumed to have been a more familiar timeline environment. However, before sending me back "they" tagged me. Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean "they" aren't watching you. Later, while trying to recover from the side effects of my futuristic encounter I came to realize that my meeting actually turned out to have been a two-way street. I became aware of the fact that I had somehow managed to come away with random disjointed pieces of "them" stored within my bewildered psyche. When I least expect it, a remnant of my futuristic encounter with "them" suddenly shakes loose and floods my consciousness like a land mind fulfilling its purpose when some poor fool accidently steps on it. Fragmented shards of bizarre experiences steeped in otherworldly concepts explode upon the surface of my unprepared psyche. It shatters my identity and temporarily incapacitates me. I'm left floundering in incomprehensible psychic territories. While it may take only a few minutes for me to regain my better senses, psychologically, it feels as if hours may have passed. I never know how much of the experience will be retained, particularly in ways that might make sense. Often, I'm not sure I want to remember. The ramifications are often unsettling, occasionally terrifying. Nevertheless, over the years, having accidentally stepped on countless psychic land-minds, I have come to certain conclusions about what it was that I encountered 1.2 million years into our future. I've also accumulated a few tentative conclusions concerning what happened to us - as a species. For those who might be curious I fear I must respond by saying there are no straightforward answers. Attempting to answer such questions, particularly within the familiar context of 21st century based evolutionary theory, I would have to state that, yes, it would seem that we survived. However, if you were to ask me personally, I'd say we didn't. Whatever it was that I encountered, while their distant ancestors may have once been human, "they" weren't. This might seem a distressing conclusion, perhaps even tragic. Over time, however, as I have endeavored to comprehend the ramifications of my on-going psychic reminders, I have come to realize that the demise of Home Sapiens was probably inevitable. Ironically, had we not changed I suspect none of what we are, what we were striving to become would have survived. But I'm getting ahead of the original question asked: What did we Home Sapiens end up doing with ourselves? I will try to answer a small portion of these questions in the next two installments. Stay tuned for part 2, assuming I still have a clear and unmonitored channel in which to transmit my revelations. Signed, Vince Dinglelint Regards Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
