postcard: in the year 04000

I have a terrible sense of history which makes envisioning the future really, really difficult. Lessee...  Continents' edges will have submerged leaving less room and less arable land and less potable water. We'll lose a lot of beautiful creatures. Beautiful beings. People will suffer. People will be kind. Arrogant, self-serving nations (wonder who?) will have fallen and new, more global nations will rise. I hope that the folly of eleventh hour thinking and reacting will have prompted a more collaborative approach to governance and resource sharing. But that would mean that the human race would have begun learning from history. People would have to be nothing like me and most people I know; to wake up from distraction; to recognize the sacred in each other and all things. Or maybe humankind will be wiped out by the after effects of the Great Asteroid of 03011, and Earth will be dominated by intelligent, self-aware descendants of the cockroach. Wait. Evolution can't happen that fast, can it? I suck at this.

In my view, people get to get together to form a society not because they're afraid and they want to strike a deal for mutual advantage, but it's much more out of love that they want to join with others in creating a world that's as good as it can be.
Martha Nussbaum, Examined Life

http://nbwhoop.tumblr.com/post/49660342301/in-the-year-04000