Post #8 – where this writer contemplates the view
Today we stopped for a coffee and parked overlooking the beach & ocean. A subdued light towards the end of the day but still distinct bands of earth, sky & sea. Always nice to be near the ocean and hear the incessant, but calming, sound of the waves breaking when they make landfall. The band of sea seems narrow but it extends out as far as the eye can see, and on over the horizon.
I guess the horizon is that line/edge we can see and everything beyond that is speculation – unless you’ve got some of that special type of radar. This got me thinking about the next edition of the Horizon Report and how it attempts to articulate the trends and impact of emerging technologies. While this can be useful and provide some sort of educated guess as to what the future may be, I’m still tempted to make the best of the present. I appreciated Andrew’s response to a previous post about the digital revolution…
@colwar Interesting idea, a lot of the sci-fi solutions are for problems we don’t have. Technology typically fills a niche not a dream.
— Andrew Holles (@actorvious) June 7, 2014
But back to the horizon. What interests me, is that we never get there. The closer we get, the further the horizon moves away, or stays as far away as it ever was! The only way we see something get to the horizon is if we stay where we are, and watch someone/thing else go there. That’s not a solution either because while it looks like they get there to us, they’ll still be trying to get to their own horizon which is always moving away from them…
Maybe we should stay where we are (enjoying the view), but keep a close eye on that horizon and on whatever is coming over it.
I guess my takeaway is that we should do the best we can with what we’ve got. We need to acknowledge that things always change, so that when presented with new opportunities & technologies, we should adopt & adapt to make the most of them. Don’t you think?
The southern horizon
Word of the Day is: ‘prate’ – I’m refusing to go on about it.