The future is so exciting because of the unexpected things that can arise from the present. As people move through their life their mindset and outlook evolve with their surroundings as they move, prepare and change for a more futuristic world. The following are excerpts from Harrison Shih’s autobiography Living in Two Dimensions about living life in the 20th century and 22nd century.
A 20th Century Mindset in a 22nd Century World
Day something many, many years later from the present time…
I woke up in a daze, eyes groggy, and stiff from the sleep. As I looked around I didn’t recognize my surroundings. Where was I? Is this a dream? I was instantly scared. As I became more and more fearful, I heard beeps all around me and suddenly a man appeared in front of me as if he came out of the floor. I was already pretty scared and seeing a man rise from the floor didn’t help my fears any. As I was trying to back-crawl away from him, not knowing who he was, he assured me he was in safe place, stating that he was a doctor. This calmed me a little, however I was still apprehensive and wasn’t sure whether to trust him fully or not. He explained that I had passed out one day in school and fell into a deep coma.
Day 2
Shell shock took over last night and when I woke up the next morning I came to my senses and grasped the fact that I wasn’t living in the same world. It obviously wasn’t 2010 and things obviously weren’t the same. As I walked about the hospital everything seemed so futuristic compared to the last thing I remembered. The doctor sat down with me and explained everything. At school way back in the year 2010 I passed out and fell into a deep coma. Here back at the hospital, the doctors had never seen a coma patient so responsive yet so deep in the coma. About a year later, researchers found a way to preserve my body and memory so that I wouldn’t age. This is why I still look like a 16 year old, even in the year 2138. After hearing all of this, I was first nervous as to how I was going to adjust to 128 years of change. But then as I thought about it, I was still young and could adjust pretty easily, I guessed. Still though, it was going to be an uphill battle.
Day 5
After showing signs of understanding my surroundings and a myriad amount of tests, the doctors cleared me to go home and enter reenter the world. It was the year 2138 and everything was different from what I remembered. As I stepped out of the hospital doors everything was enormous. The hospital building, like all of the surrounding buildings was over 1000 stories tall! I didn’t see any cars around me but when I looked up I saw these objects flying around. I asked a passerby what those were and he said they were flysracs. Simultaneously, he recognized me as the coma guy and asked for my autograph. I followed up by asking how he knew who I was. The man followed up by saying I was an international superstar because I was such a medical miracle. He pointed me in the direction of the apartment the hospital had given me. As I found my way back home, this was the highest apartment in Central, the centermost building of the entire East Coast. I expected a long ride up the lavator-e but within seconds, literally, I was at the door of my apartment. I assumed that in all the years, technology had advanced to the point where they could make what I knew as an elevator travel thousands of floors in just seconds.
Day 5 (Later that night)
When I finished exploring my enormous new pad, I saw what looked like a TV mounted on the wall next to this floating box object. This area I assumed to be my room. While I was playing around with this TV like object I learned two things: it was called a VirtEv, which stood for Virtual Everything, and this was an all in one machine. Browsing through the VirtEv I noticed I had messages waiting for me. At least something stayed the same… or so I thought. Next, when I clicked the first message, a face projected from the screen and it began to talk. This along with the 22 other messages were all requests for interviews and book offers highlighting my experience. I finished going through all of them and began to feel quite hungry. I went to the fridge and noticed everything was smaller. Food now was in pill form and it was even healthier than previously cooked meals. This to me was astonishing. Finally, I headed off to bed, concluding that the world was truly different; living quarters were improved, and everything seemed faster, bigger and easier.
One year later
And so here I sit giving my first interview of two for the day. All in all, the past year has been a whirlwind adjusting to this new life in the year 2139. I think that after a year, I’ve adjusted pretty well. Everything is just harder, faster, and bigger. I decided to donate all of the money I received from all the media spotlights to the research department at Central Hospital. This was probably the single hardest thing to adjust too: no more paper money. Everything these days was done in credit and electronically. I guess this really is the new world we live in. Accepting the fact that there was no more paper money was hard enough. I guess if I'm to live in this world my next task will have to be learning how to fly a flysrac. Maybe I can start to learn once all this media attention and chauffeuring slows down. I'll commit myself to learn next week and share my experience soon.
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