Living In the 80's, In the Future

I'm not referring to the 1980's. Why would I write about that? VH1 pretty much covered all the highlights. I'm talking about the year 2062. The future! [unless you are reading this sometime in or past 2062, in which case, you already know all this stuff, so quit listening to the holo-laser dictation and go spacesurfing or whatever] And also, coincidentally, the year I turn into an octogenarian.

You mean like one of those octopus doctors??
No, Cooper, like a person who has completed the not so trivial accomplishment of living up to and thru their 80th birthday! *Future hi five!* The only thing I am mad at my future self about is that they haven't tried to contact me via Time-Phone™ to tell me not to do the stupid things I am most definitely going to do. Altho... if I were me (which I am, sometimes), I would probably NOT tell my past self about any mistakes to be made, because 1) it is probably hilarious to watch, and 2) if I were to alter any of those formative events, I wouldn't turn out as awesome as I think I am going to turn out. Brain asplode yet? Good.

Okay, but time altering paradoxes aside, it is going to be sweet to be 80. I can't say I know what the future holds as far as technology is concerned, but I can promise it will be fun. At the rate scientists are inventing things based on science fiction movies, we should all have personal force fields and be kwisatz haderachs by 2062 (seriously, have we not figured out which spice is melange yet?). But barring all that, I am at least hoping for some awesome joint/limb replacement technology. Seriously, I am turning 30 in a week, and I have found myself enthralled by recent commercials [not sure how, I don't watch regular TV] about joint health and replacement surgeries. I once was resting myself in the water closet at a customers house, reading an article in a readily available magazine, thoroughly digging the information held within, and finished said article before realizing I was thumbing thru a copy of AARP. I would have cried some, but I think my tear ducts went before my knees.

People reading this article that are older than my current incarnation (in which i hope there are a lot of you, because young people are commonly too spastic these days to read a whole one of these), please don't think that I think that 30 is old, I don't. I am looking forward to leaving my nefarious and painful twenty's behind like that one crippled frontier child you agreed upon beforehand to leave behind in case of a swift and terrible Indian raid. I am poised to turn and give the beauty pageant wave to all the growing pains and gains (more the former than the latter) of my "learning years", ready to embark on what promises to be a glorious and inescapable future. What I am saying is that i FEEL old, like physically. Between missing parts in one knee, early onset arthritis, abused stereocilia [the hairs in your ear that allow you to hear a range of frequencies, and also an awesome band name (already taken)], and already having one rare form of bone spur removed from my now partially numb left arm before I hit college, I feel OLD.

So I look to the future with a hope that technology can keep up with the systematic degradation of this mortal vessel. Oh the wonders that shall befall us! Nano-machines that we will eat out of pudding cups that will stitch our bones and ligaments back together again? Instantly replicated replacement organs for victims of accidents? Flash animation tattoos? (Ok that one isn't medically relevant in any way, but damn if it wouldn't be cool) As the current generation grows up and takes over the sciences, they look at everything with eyes more open than their predecessors. They were raised on movies and shows with fantastical inventions and ideas. They think so far outside the modernly conceived idea of a box that it's safer to presume they live entirely outside this box, looking into it from time to time only to scoff at it's dimensions and limitations.

Technology is an exponentially growing thing, an entity that enraptures us as a civilization, and on which we have built our pillars upon. It can take us to great heights, or ultimately to our doom, as is subject in the incredible future-documentary The  Matrix. I will have to sift through these documentaries in search of more future information to divulge to you all. So until then, see you in the future! (except you, killer robots, we will be destroying and overcoming your tyrannous rule)