Future City Sights and Sounds III

By Andrew R. Duckworth

I remember tales of flying cars dancing about starry heavens,
Ships to distant worlds for claiming a new Earth.
Those fables began years ago,
Before nature began its rebirth.

Now, its but a far off dream for the eccentric.
We're much too busy developing our replacements.
Wonder has escaped the human imagination,
And those who dare dream lose themselves to hesitation.

We place ourselves in prisons we're all too eager to construct
Where thought is limited and life mundane
And the idea of freedom becomes profane.
We wait to self-destruct.

We all look into the warden's eyes
And see the thing that we despise,
Finding to our great surprise
That we are the source of all the lies.

One day, the city might be a different place
With channels leading through time and space,
And flying cars that dance among stars,
And wonder fills the mind.

Until then, we're locked inside
The place where we love to hide
Where comfort and despair collide,
Too complacent being leaps behind.

With the lock down, and even before it, I felt as though humanity was failing itself in a way. Time and energy are spent developing automation. While some automation is good, particularly in times like these, we’re over-investing in it to the point that we want everything automated, which is dangerous. To add to this, there are so many great ideas that have been just thrown to the side. Humanity has sort of lost its ability to wonder. No one comes up with any insanely idiotic yet strangely brilliant ideas anymore, at least not that I’ve noticed. What happened to the idea of an instantaneous transportation system? By the way, I’m not in any way suggesting that we should be anywhere close to bringing such an idea to fruition. But where have all of the “out there” ideas gone? I suppose that, especially over the last decade or two decades, it has been more beneficial to focus on the present, the here and now, what is possible in this moment. We can attribute that to a number of different causes. However, that leaves us with a bit of a shortness of dreamers. We’ve become a bit complacent with the here and now. I’m ready for more eccentric dreamers to come along and propose out-there ideas that captivate the imagination and make us wonder about possibilities.

This writing is the work of its author, Andrew Ryan Duckworth, and can in no way be reproduced, copied, or distributed in any form without request from the author.