As we boldly go jetpacking to work, we'll pine for relics of old times. Like keyrings
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Version 0 of 1. The most fanciful prediction of sci-fi lovers finally came true this week. A jetpack designer is preparing to float his invention on the Australian stock market. Star Trek is now. Beam us Aussies up, Scotty. Days later, a multinational home furniture chain known for its no fuss Scandi design that comes with a side of meatballs (if never all the right parts), announced it was creating furniture that will charge all our umbilical devices, like smartphones and computers. No more messy cables and lost chargers and calls to hotels asking if the cleaner found our plug in the vacated room. All you’ll need to do is pop your phone down on the tabletop and, presto, job done. How very futuristic. These developments do strike me as useful innovations – particularly the jetpack which will surely cut commuting time in half – but am I the only one feeling a bit misty-eyed for the related loss of those things we’re tossing aside in our quest to bring these futuristic dreams into reality? I’m thinking the useless stuff; the things no one will miss. Initially. Keys will soon be museum pieces. But what of the keyrings purchased last minute on holiday as a memento of too much time spent drinking too many fluorescent cocktails at that too-easy-to-reach swim-up bar of the resort? Where else will we hang the weird little trinkets we collect like bowerbirds to remind us of the good times? We humans do like being surrounded by our funny little personal stories; our odd life markers. ID cards will be the next. Even as I’m getting fitted up with the chip that does the same job, I will miss laughing at my horribly unflattering license picture and the haircut that continues to mock me years later because I was tight enough to take the 10-year renewal discount deal. Gone too the potential of taking down your smug business colleague with one glance at his card. “So you had a penchant for surf wear, shark fin necklaces and eyebrow piercings, Steve?” Nice. Which brings us to wallets – no use for that bit of fluffy Mambo velcro in our inevitably cashless future. But what of the bank notes kept from distant countries once visited, the drachma and the lira and the Benjamins held on to wistfully in the hope that we one day might return? Or the dog-eared school photos of little Terry and Lisa that stare out of the plastic window like bugs in amber? Sometimes it’s nice to be reminded of our funny old lives. Right there. In a shop. On our lunch-hour. Workspaces are probably doomed too. Companies are taking up hot desking as fast as starving contestants on I’m A Celebrity inhale a pizza the minute they’re evicted from camp. No permanent space means there’s no place for postcards or personal fluff. Mr Spock never had a picture of that great outfit he wore at Cheryl’s wedding in the Maldives tacked up to the flight deck of the Enterprise, did he? Ditching the mess is how we predicted life in the future. Soon, all will be clean and sleek. If that’s your bag, it’s a win. Not all of us can or want to neaten up the rough edges of our lives. Our mess is part of us too. Plus, I would look terrible in a one-style-suits-all space jumpsuit. I couldn’t even work a onesie. |