What is futuristic?
Futuristic is something that we aspire for in the future. A promise of the kind of life we would want in future. When looked closely — there are two kinds of futuristic. One, which comes because the economy wants to expand. This leads to both useful and useless products being made, which change our lives. The second, is through things which become rarer and at the same time their value keeps on increasing.
The first one can lead to much vanity. The real value of such things hides away and a perceived value appears instead. For example, automatic cars. Removing the gear shift is not the smartest design. A task which uses little energy for the human hand but much energy in production and in operation if you want your car to shift gears. Or the rose gold smartphones, it doesn’t really make it better but keeps running after shinier things.
The second kind of futuristic is the one which is worth striving for. These are the things that are becoming rarer and more valuable. Things like sustainable design, organic food, subsistence agriculture, pure water, deep work, connection to nature etc. are all I think very futuristic. Each of them has high value in the economy and they are becoming rarer by the day.
Two futuristic realms-
Nature: Wouldn’t we want to live close to nature, eat organic food, and swim in a pond when we retire? Wouldn’t we want our kids to grow spending time with different trees, running and playing in mud, chasing butterflies instead keeping indoors because there is too much traffic outside? Wouldn’t we want a life free of lifestyle diseases, secondary aging, and different body pains?
Deep Work: Cal Newport defines deep work as ‘Professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate.’
I add to it professional, artistic or for personal projects. The economy in last 30 years made a lot of people richer and more privileged (if you have a house, a car and money to buy food for next 10 years, you are rich!) For all those people or their children it is now easier than ever to focus on deep work. Adam Smith’s utopia of working 15 hours a week and being able to live has been achieved for the middle and upper class (for better or worse) but surprisingly very people today have leisure time. In fact it seems most people are working longer hours than in past. And their work or their approach falls rarely in line with deep work. Deep work is becoming rarer in the economy.
We all want what to be ahead of times. To have the best of future and least of its insecurities. But who decides the content of this future? The Buyer? The Producer? And what happens when the buyer starts producing?
What is futuristic for you? Think about it.
