Discovery

As a child of the Seventies, I remember hearing and reading about what life was going to be like when we were adults. Basically, we were all going to be living on the moon (Space 1999), or living in wonderful cities (Logan's Run, but without the color crystals and enforcers and killing and such), or living in space stations (from Star Trek all the way down to my Scholastic magazine). Of course this wonderful view of the future had been in vogue for the course of the 20th century - from H.G. Wells to Metropolis to Buck Rogers - but it seemed that it really going to happen. We had actually been to the moon, and it seemed only a matter of time that we would be going back, this time forming colonies and stations. Well, here we are thirty years later, and what changes there have been seem pretty small. We have better cars, but they are still cars running on gas. We have computers, cell phones and microwaves, but really they have just better typewriters, regular telephones, and ovens. But what is really frustrating is that there was not the big leap, where poverty was eliminated or reduced, where ignorance and bigotry were a thing of the past, where the world would embrace all nations, races, and religions. Instead, more people then ever, both in the U.S. and the world, are barely surviving, racial and religious wars and hatreds are growing, and despite all the world's knowledge now available to everybody via the internet, we still don't understand each other.

What we need is that next big discovery, where live as we know it is changed forever. Change seems to be handled best by the human race when it is evolutionary instead of revolutionary, but a big shakeup would probably be good for us right about now. Maybe it is finding a cheap and clean power source. Maybe it is a health discovery, like curing cancer or AIDS. Maybe it is a new economic tool or model, or a new philosophy, or even a new favor of Coke. We just need something positive to make everyone stop and say "This life is about more than controlling resources, destroying your political adversary, or what Nicolette Sheridan was not wearing on Monday Night Football." Maybe it will come, maybe it won't. But we should keep striving towards that big discovery in whatever we do. Because who knows? Maybe that can of Diet Low-Carb Lime Cherry Cola Coke will be fueling our cars someday.