There is an old quote that I was taught when I was just a few years old. I think that I was seven or eight years old at the time. Lester Clouse and I were walking up the side of the mountain, going to his tobacco barn. The cows were grazing in the pastures. The wind rippled the waters of the stock pond, turning the sunlight that reflected from its surface into bright gold bands. Pap looked down at me and said, "Bobby..." --He always called me Bobby--"I want you to always remember this. My Grandfather taught me this. 'The World That You Live In Is The World That You Create. All Of The Words; All Of The Actions; All Of The Habits That You Make Will Determine The World That You Live In.' Yes, that is what my Grandfather said to me. I tell you, Bobby, if you do not like the world that you live in, then change it!"
I will never forget what Pap told me that day. It has driven my Life. I have a deep seated desire to make my world into something that is more than just a place to live. I want to live in a world that is perfect, that is beautiful, that is safe and secure, that others would want to raise their children's children in... And I Can Make It Happen.
Whenever I begin the training process that is necessary to create a successful Professional Crime Fighter, I always start out by asking a question. 'Are you ready to make a difference in your world?'
My answer was a resounding YES! What is your answer?
There is something called Futuristics. It is a Field Of Study which focuses on the prediction of the Future by analyzing past and present coditions within Society. The theory states that by studying the past, and comparing it to the present, we can make close guesses as to what our Society will be like in the near future. This theory has been enlarged to state that a thorough examination and analysis of the past, coupled with a complete comparison of current societal conditions, will produce a fairly close guess of what the world will be like in the Far Future.
Futuristics has been used for quite some time now to predict social changes. The evolution of society into new and improved--or new and worse--socially significant environments has been used as the vehicle for countless books, magazine articles, movies, radio programs, and even television extravaganzas. In many cases, these attempts at predicting the future have been quite accurate. In most cases, the societal conditions of our world did indeed evolve into something new... something improved in many ways... but with some worse conditions mixed into the bundle.
However, Futuristics has not proven itself to be the best tool to determine what the future holds. No, it falls down on its face when subjected to close scrutiny by the experts in the Field of Socio-Historical Analysis. Why? Because Futuristics fails to take into account one tiny aspect of Humanity. The Futurists never quite learned and adopted the principles contained in that quote that Pap Clouse gave me those many years ago.
I watched Star Trek [© Captain Kirk And Friends. All Rights Reserved.] as a child. I continued to watch it into my teen aged years, and even into my late adolescance. I was always fascinated with the dual aspects presented within the complex story lines found in each episode of the television show.
There was, on the one hand, a far flung prediction of wildly complex and almost sentient technology that would make our lives much simpler; that would allow us as a people to stretch out into the vastness of even Space itself, should we choose to do so. Mankind has now reached out beyond the borders of their solar system to probe the vast reaches of space.
On the other hand, there was the constant depiction of time-worn struggles between divergent sociological groups... race conflict, gender conflict, social class conflicts, arguments over what laws were proper and which ones should be enforced and how to enforce them; even altercations between groups about which types of punishment are sufficient for which types of unwanted or wrong behaviors. Sounds familiar does it not? We live with these struggles today. There were here yesterday. They will be here tomorrow.