167: Memo to the People of the Future
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Back toward the end of the 20th century, in the last few months, there was a flurry of last-minute scrambling, people trying, for some reason, to document what the 20th century was all about before it ended, as if human civilization was suddenly on a global term paper deadline, and we had to get everything down before the semester that was the last century ended, there would be points taken off our papers. During this odd period of human beings thinking about the past and the present and the future, the New York Times magazine decided to do a special issue, summarizing who he were at the turn of the millennium, which it was going to bury in a time capsule for the people of the year 3000. And among the dozens of people who they invited to take part in this, they caught a guy who I know and invented Miller who makes films. The New York Times could include films in the capsule and stills from the films or the frames in the magazine, and they asked if he had any interest in documenting something for the people of the future. As it turns out, just the night before it, Bennett had been at a party where he had met this guy who he had just adored, really funny smart guy who was a professional actor and a dwarf, as I understand it, very tiny man. Bennett suggested to the New York Times that he would make a very brief movie, where he would take this guy on the street somewhere and film him alone, and the guy would go directly into the camera, and say something along the lines of "Hello, people of the future." Scientists tell us that by the time that you're seeing this, humankind will have made unimaginable advances. Gone will be the problems that plague us today, disease, inequality, pollution, war, why I am told that a thousand years from now, human beings may grow to be as large as five or perhaps even six feet tall. People of the future, I salute you. And that would be it. And presumably the people of the future would, at some point, look at the other pages in the magazine buried in this time cap, so I realized that 20th century humans had already reached five or six feet in height, many of them. And hopefully they would understand the whole thing was a joke. A joke launched deep into the future, which the New York Times did not go for this, but I have to say I love this idea. Can you imagine what it would be like to get a message like that from a thousand years back? If we would find little pranks left for us in the ruins of Egypt, or Rome, or Pompeii, we would love those people. Anyway, around this time, when people I actually knew and loved were worrying about the civilization of the future and what it would think of us, there came a point where I realized I hate the people of the future. I don't care what they think of us. Picture them. There they are. A thousand years from now. The people of the future. Not only are we dust, but our children are gone, our children's children. Everything we ever believed or cared about, it is long, long forgotten, all of it. And there they are. The people of the future. Busy with the busy lives, driving to work, making plans for the weekend, getting together.
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