Here we are. Ready or not, another year has begun, and not just a new year but a whole new decade.
I know there are some people who will argue that the new decade doesn’t begin until 2021. They claim that there is no such thing as year “zero,” therefore the first decade was years 1-10. I tend to ignore these people because they are annoying. If the year starts with a 2, then it’s the 20’s in my opinion, and since this is my blog, I’m saying that January 1st marked the beginning of a new decade.
If you disagree, go get your own blog. End of argument.
When I was a kid growing up in the 1970’s, I used to wonder what the world would be like in the year 2000. Would we have flying cars? Would we have colonies on the moon, or commercial space flights? Would aliens find our planet and decide we should be blown up? (Yeah, I had an active imagination as a kid.)
Well, the answer to all those questions is “no.” Especially to the flying car. Where the hell is my flying car? Movies and TV have been promising flying cars since I was a child, and what have we actually been given? Electric cars.
How the hell is that a fair trade-off?
And that was all supposed to happen by 2000. I never used to wonder what the world would be like in 2020, or what I would be doing because I just assumed that I would probably be dead.
I’m not dead yet. And worse, I still don’t own a flying car.
On the plus side, there have been some great inventions in my lifetime. Cell phones were invented and, just a few years later, they became cameras, daily planners, games, alarm clocks, stereos and a thousand other things all in one device. When I was growing up, I actually had to go over to a friend’s house if I wanted to talk to them. We had one telephone in our house that I was not allowed to answer for the first ten years of my life, and even after that, I couldn’t make outgoing calls because I might prevent someone else from trying to call us.
Now I can talk to five people all at once and never have to come face-to-face with any of them.
Which is convenient because, for the most part, I don’t like being around people.
Computers were invented before I was born, but it was in my lifetime that they became household items. The internet was also created while I’ve been around. Now, anybody can jump online and research the lowest price for wool socks, how to feed a llama, or where to go to find the best dentures. Any idiot can buy a domain name and start up their own blog in the amount of time it takes to boil a hotdog.
Okay, that last one hit a little too close to home.
There have been so many inventions in the past fifty years, that many of them have already disappeared and been replaced with other inventions. The VCR was invented, everybody bought one and then DVD’s showed up. Now, everyone still has a VCR, but it sits in a drawer somewhere in the house just in case someone wants to watch one of the two hundred VHS movies we can’t force ourselves to throw away.
The 8-track tape was invented in my lifetime. It was replaced by cassette tapes in the 1980’s, which in turn died a slow death when the compact disc was created. Compact discs (CD’s) are still around for the moment, but they are disappearing now that we can stream music directly through our cell phones. That is three generations of music players that have come and gone since I was born. Which is terribly depressing. I’m starting to feel really old right now.
So, enough dwelling on the past. Let’s look at what the future might hold. I predict that in 2020 politics and religion will continue to cause some tension-riddled meals in the Wilbanks household. I predict my children will continue to cost me more money and aggravation than they are worth. And, I predict that this blog will continue for a while longer as it is currently the only legal outlet I am allowed to deal with the frustrations in my life.
Strangling the aforementioned children is apparently frowned upon.
Beyond that, what does the future look like? Will there be space travel? Can we find world peace? Is there a cure to poverty and neglect? I don’t know. We shall just have to wait and see.
I’ll tell you one thing though, I damned-well better get my flying car.
.
.
.
Enjoying Deep Dark Thoughts? Follow me on Facebook so you don’t miss a post. Just go to my page and click the “Like” button to receive updates on my blog and other projects.
And you can follow me on Twitter @gallenwilbanks.