The future becomes present becomes past

“We’re going to party like it’s 1999” was the answer to Final Jeopardy the other night — Prince’s song was released and hit the pop music charts in 1982, re-released and charted again 17 years later, and a third time 17 years after that.

Of course the song was popular again in 1999, and then after Prince died in 2016.

Each time the song was the same but meant different things — the future in 1982, today in 1999, and memories in 2016.

Today’s future becomes tomorrow’s nostalgia.

Among the songs that were popular when I was a tadpole:

“Gonna save all my money and buy a GTO …”

“Come back when you grow up, girl …”

“We can work it out …”

… I wonder if they did.

The future is upon us before we realize, and most of the time it’s not quite what we expected. (The 1950 movie Destination Moon imagines a moon landing by private-sector scientists in 1962.) Sometimes it’s more than we expect, sometimes it’s less — “What a beautiful wedding,” I imagine, means it was even more sweet than expected.

We all have our expectations, and they shape our reactions.

I suspect the best way to approach the future is with no expectations and accept what happens at face value. Oh, one may (and should) plan for the future, but we need to be ever vigilant to ensure that other people’s plans mesh with ours as gently as possible.

We are all interested in the future

“We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives.”
— The Amazing Criswell, in Plan Nine From Outer Space

Ed Wood’s most famous film is one of my guiltiest pleasures, and the opening monologue by The Amazing Criswell is one of my favorite moments, and the first line of the movie is best of all.

It sounds so profound, and maybe it is, but it’s so flaming obvious that it’s hysterically funny. And it’s hysterically funny because it’s absolutely true.

You and I are going to spend the rest of our lives in the future. Look out, now: Here it comes! Aren’t you interested? Of course you are!

Sometimes I think about my dad, who was a teenager in the 1930s, working with a homebuilt radio, listening to the world in a way unimaginable to his own father — and I wonder at the astounding changes that happened during his 96-plus years of living in the future.

Computers the size of auditoriums were refined and reduced until they fit in the palm of our hand. We have access to not just sounds a world away but live television images so clear we could be looking through a window at them.

Heck, a lot of the astonishing stuff happened after he had his middle son just shy of 30: heart transplants, moon landings, a worldwide communications web.

We are all interested in the future, because that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives.

Let’s do what we can to ensure the miracles keep on coming and aren’t foiled by grave robbers from outer space.