I gave a talk last night in which I showed a vision for the future. Everything I literally demonstrated on my computer is clearly possible today — after all, people were seeing me do the demo right there in front of them.<\/p>\n
Yet I was telling a tale of things that are not yet possible, yet will be in the future. This relationship between what was real and what was merely suggested created a dramatic tension, and that tension was the heart of the story.<\/p>\n
I think we feel a similar tension whenever we experience a play or a movie, attend an opera or read a novel. We are being introduced to a world that clearly does not exist, in any literal sense.<\/p>\n
Yet it could<\/i> exist, at least in our collective imaginations. The task of the players is not to fool their audience, but rather to invite that audience to willingly enter a shared land of make-believe.<\/p>\n
There is an extra dimension to this invitation when the “land of make-believe” is presented as though it is real. We feel this dimension when we watch a movie filmed in a style of Cin\u00e9ma v\u00e9rit\u00e9<\/i>, or a performance by a stage conjurer. Logic tells us that the thing we are watching is clearly not happening, yet our senses tell us otherwise.<\/p>\n
I think my talks about the future fit into this latter category. I want people to experience an exciting and positive future as though it is already here.<\/p>\n
My goals in doing so are quite specific: I’m not trying to fool my audience. Rather, I am inviting them to join me in making the future happen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I gave a talk last night in which I showed a vision for the future. Everything I literally demonstrated on my computer is clearly possible today — after all, people were seeing me do the demo right there in front of them. Yet I was telling a tale of things that are not yet possible, … Continue reading “Making the future happen”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20217"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20217"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20219,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20217\/revisions\/20219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}