Imagine what it would have been like in the year 999. Suppose you could travel back there and explain to them what the world will be like in another thousand years. You could tell them about flight, computers and medical advances. You could try explaining television and email. Maybe you’d give them some understanding of genetic engineering … and you know what? Practically every one of those examples have come about in the last half century! A thousand years is an unimaginably long time. What’s more, no one would believe a word you said.
So what will it be like in 2999? We cannot possibly even begin to guess. More has happened in the last fifty years than happened in all of recorded history up til that time if you think about it.
We live in the most remarkable age of all time.
But that is not to say more remarkable will not come.
So as you contemplate your own future, and perhaps that of your children, even your grandchildren, think on this.
There are countless examples of things we take for granted that were at the outset considered impossible. A thousand years ago, you would have been condemned as a madman for even suggesting a fraction of what we have in our time.
When you hear talk of what is to come, don’t dismiss it as impossible. I have heard of genetic surgery, time travel, and dying without leaving the body as a residue, just for starters. All considered impossible or highly improbable now. As would air travel, television and heart replacement in 999.
The plain fact is, none of us knows enough to be a pessimist.
