Looking Forward by Kenneth Jr. (snow like ashes .txt) 📗

“I agree,” Hella responds. “Thomas Edison said, ‘The stomach is the only part of a man which can be fully satisfied. The yearning of man’s brain for new knowledge and experience... can never be completely met.’ Perhaps if we could live 10,000,000 years we might find life boring. But Nugent was right—that certainly is not our problem today!”

Everyone laughs at this last remark. Amazing how people can get worked up over problems that don’t even exist!

No Burdensome Possessions

After three weeks Scott and Hella realize they cannot leave soon. So many beauties, unique feelings, thoughts. Perhaps six months, perhaps a year would be enough. How could one decide in advance? They notify Central Correlation that they plan to remain here indefinitely. All conference calls and other communications are to continue to come to the Exumas, for they have cancelled their plans to return. They ask the Correlation Center to make their apartment available to other people. This is no problem, for Scott and Hella left no personal possessions there. In fact, they have few “personal” possessions. Whatever they want to use is available in any environment on earth.

The entire concept of personal possessions belongs to the old scarcity societies. It isn’t that Scott and Hella are forbidden to have them. They don’t want them. They have no need for them. All of the things that people of previous societies used and which are still functional in the twenty-first century are structured into the environment. Suppose someone were to tell Scott, “Here is a pen. It belongs to you. You must take care of it and not let anyone take it away from you when you’re not looking.” Scott would give him a what’s-going-on-here reaction.

Besides, he has relatively little need to make marks on pieces of paper, for he can talk into the cybernator, and his words will be automatically recorded or printed. The finger-sized computer embedded in Scott’s brain has sensory inputs that permit drawing by means of thought. If he wants to keep a copy of such a drawing, he instructs the cybernator to make a copy or to store the image he has created with his thought patterns.

Anything Scott and Hella want can be rapidly produced to their personal specifications and usually delivered in several hours, no matter where they are—on the earth, below the earth, or in the satellites above the earth. They would regard it as an imposition if they had to regard certain things as their own—to keep track of them, to take them where they go so that they would have them available when needed, to make sure that they are properly serviced and in good working order. What a crude bother! In contrast, Scott and Hella have everything they need anywhere on earth. They are never concerned with taking care of any physical objects, for maintenance is cybernated. “The old concept of ownership sounds utterly barbaric,” Scott once observed. “It’s burdensome and boring.”

Artistic Expression Is a Part of Living

Scott and Hella find themselves deeply moved by the color of the reefs and waters, the savage brutality of the more aggressive fish, and the graceful motion of the marine plants and animals. While Hella is visiting the observation deck high above the Exuma Sound, she has a desire to express her feelings in a three-dimensional painting. She tells the cybernator of her wish to paint and walks over to a three- by four-foot panel. She picks up a lightweight instrument about three times the size of a pen. Through controlling the adjustment on this instrument, she is able to produce any color, or mixture of color, desired. Just as a sliding trombone can produce graduations of pitch, so her electronic brush can produce a thousand different hues and tints. Fine lines are drawn by holding it close to the screen. Broad lines are made by pulling it back. The pen can paint a flat, two-dimensional picture, or it can build up the material into any three-dimensional pattern desired. If Hella is dissatisfied with her work and wishes to start over, she has only to indicate so, and the cybernator will electronically erase it. When Hella is through with her painting, she instructs the cybernator to record it. If she especially likes it, she will order the cybernator to transmit it to the Correlation Center.

Scott has a particular talent in sculpture, and he is inspired by the living forms surrounding him in the Bahamian waters. By using an electroformer, he is able to produce sculpture that in previous centuries might have involved days of hacking away at wood or stone. When he is satisfied with one of his productions, he orders the cybernator to send it to the Correlation Center. The physical structure of the sculpture is not moved, but through electronic scanning its contours and colors are recorded and transmitted. The Correlation Center schedules the exhibition of paintings and sculptures. Through three-dimensional teleprojection Scott’s sculpture will probably appear for ten-minute intervals in several apartments, walkway areas, and research laboratories during the next week. The degree to which it will appear again in other areas of the world and whether it will ever be shown at a Cultural Center depends on the amount of attention it receives as recorded automatically by attention scanners.

If Scott or Hella were curious regarding the fate of their creations, they could ask their cybernator to request that information from the Correlation Center. They do not, however, produce these creations for the ego satisfaction of exhibiting them to others. They make them for their own pleasure. They create them because they have an inside need to express themselves. They produce them for the satisfaction of developing their artistic talents to a higher level. Whether anyone else in the world likes or dislikes their art is of little concern. Their main reason for transmitting their better products to the Correlation Center is to share with others something they feel would add slightly to the lives of