futuristic society - quotes and descriptions to inspire creative writing
"Oh ho!" he said, "Royalty? We did away with that long ago! We have our academics and respected thinkers 'in residence' so to speak. If they wish to serve the nation for the rest of their lives they give us their wisdom freely and in return they have one of the 'idea village' cottages for life. We feed them and such. They live in comfortable modesty, free to think, to do research, to write whatever they please. Usually we recruit them in middle age, some younger, some older at times. It's the inverted triangle model, service and love as our greatest good. Tell me, Alex, when you get back to your time, what will you do?"
Janice lifted her glasses with the end of her pencil, seating them delicately upon her nose. "Philosophy, these days, is founded on the principle of love, but we use neurology and biology too, plus anthropology, some history and such. The old Greeks were wonderful, but we have access to so much more now and learning across subjects brings as a much more solid feeling of truth. The idea of love though, it taps into our intuitions, and there's so much intelligence there it's astounding. Perhaps love is the 'Philosopher's Stone' of our societies, not for an individual but for our Earth. It makes everything easier and now we have so many philosophy students. When we can say things in ways everyone can relate to we become this new and better society."
One of the keys to our future, the good one, was to stop making new laws. Instead we talked to people, helped them, brought calmness and a sense of love. In this freedom we thrived and the prisons emptied. The kids wore smiles as big as their hearts and we found health. The way forwards in your time is words of wisdom written in pure love. We had community block parties, our young artists leading the way. We sang our hearts out until everyone could see them and everyone felt safe being so open. It's when hope itself started to feel bright, as if it were written in stars.
It was 2035 by the time the government had morphed into what future generations recognize as government. It was when neuroscience and the understanding of cortisol, of stress reactions and behavioural responses showed that the way forwards was love - the way faith had always said it was. I guess in a lotta ways it was the marriage of science and faith that changed everything. There was no more to guess about, no more to argue over. The old ways of cooperation induced by fear gave-way to cooperation in liberty, with people driven by a calling of duty, to help others with the talents God gave them. For the most part the government functions are health promoting policies and logistics, that and it's service based rather than being seen as power or control.
We stopped doing the things that caused anxiety in one another as best we could, and with lower stress hormones came greater health and social cohesion. We live with more joy, more liberty, more love for others and our world. We all have a high level of general education, enough to safe guard us against the more hateful ideologies of your era, caustic as they are. I guess you were living in a poison soup of sorts, must have been hard. We look at you guys in the same way you look at medieval doctors with their leech therapies.
So, you guys a generation or two ago... read. Read neuroscience, learn basic biology, learn about cortisol, learn about love, learn about nature, learn about spirituality and faith. Be creative in music, dance, writing and art too, keep expanding your neural nets. Find the joy in everything. Keep doing sport, lots of sport. Know that the best thing you can do for your health and of those you love is to reduce stress, seek sunlight, eat healthy food and laugh often. Change is coming... really good era-transforming change...
We have no hierarchy anymore, just fraternity, public service and education. There are the corps for horticulture, engineering, science and health. There are the societies of arts in all their forms. Fun is part of life, the stress is the good type we choose when following our passions. There is no money, no power structures, and in this fluidity of life there is calm and a sense of purpose. The children laugh more than I remember we ever did and they learn so naturally. No-one can quite believe what used to pass for childcare, wasn't it just abuse by another name? I read about the daycares and schools where they sat still for hours every day. We wouldn't even do that to a puppy.
In 2033 we are a community, a living and breathing organic life force. We're happy, empathic and humane. We love who we are and how we care for Earth. Before, the houses sprawled over the land, pollution was caused for trinkets and the rich amassed money to be buried in fine coffins and have fancy wakes. Perhaps we're all just more humble these days, more relaxed about who we are as a species. Either way, I'm so glad to be born now; I guess the good news is that your future is amazing.
Everything is different to how it was in your time, how odd we can talk to you through this organic window. If we ignore the material changes, the homes, the way we generate power and such, the biggest shift is in society itself. Of course we are genetically almost identical to you, but you'd never know it from the way we are. We have found a way to be the best we can be, to live honourably and love what we do. Back then you argued over every little thing, "debate" I think you called it. We don't do that anymore, no-one communicates ideas that way. When someone has a different idea, we treat it with respect, try to understand their perspective and never laugh at anything radically different. Sometimes the greatest innovations seem stupid to the masses at first, that's just the way it is.
In your world, our world of old, you were all trying to "win," so of course there were many, including children and the vulnerable, who "lost." We aren't communist, we aren't capitalist, we aren't one religion or another, one nationality or another. We designed new systems that couldn't be abused and were virtuous cycles that improved life rather than caused harm. No money meant no elites, no royalty, no bankers, no financial systems. Our leaders are selected in childhood - they are the ones with the open hearts who naturally help others and shower love on all they meet.
With these natural "angels" as our leaders we are simply decent, honest, trustworthy and kind. We love one another, we respect our Mother Earth and Father in Heaven and that spirituality keeps us whole and healthy. We work for His glory on earth. It is truly our utopia, heaven on earth, but one with technology as tools rather than surveillance and domination through fear as you still have.
Once we were able to leave the planet and travel the galaxy the other interstellar species came to welcome us and teach us intergalactic law. Many of them now have "embassies" on earth...
There came a time when we realized the core of our failings. We were making the wrong choices day after day. Life is a series of choices and what we do is shaped by our focus, our outlook on life. Most of us knew we wanted happiness and love, but all around us were misleading messages. "To be loved and happy you need to achieve commercial notions of beauty, be rich and attain power." They were so wrong. To achieve happiness and love you simply make them your focus. All you need to be happy is a comfortable life with your family and friends: food, shelter, health care, a positive focus for work and enough free time to relax. The rest is highly damaging. It's no wonder we all felt so confused back then; when we achieved what society told us we wanted the result was more emptiness - a hunger for more instead of satisfaction - addiction instead of health.
It's hard to believe that once we consumed the land with our homes, so much that nature had nowhere to thrive. Now our homes float in the ocean; they are so much bigger than those our ancestors built as towers. We have underwater cities too. People still live up top, where the farms are and the hydroponic stations. The only towers are those of the growing fruits and vegetables, each of them moving like an old ferris wheel, from planting to harvest in one cycle. I'm going up there when I'm twelve to learn how to care for our plants. They say the animals roam around the land in herds and birds fill the sky with music.
In my dream I saw a building grow into the sky, many strands of steel and glass like the stems of a wild plant, organic in shape, coming together and parting. It was a vertical city. Standing underneath and looking left and right, with only soil beneath my feet, it was at least three football stadiums wide and went up as far as the eye could see. All around was nature, just nature... and it was beautiful.
The Thatcher dream of a nation of homeowners was something we all wanted; we believed in it. Yet that was at odds with the free market, with others having the right to own many homes for rental incomes, then leveraging their values to buy more. The right to buy a holiday home in a rural location was at odds with the rights of those communities to have affordable homes for the young. So it was in 2020 that the government announced the green bonds for homes scheme.
The scheme was open to anyone, regardless of the number of properties owned. The home owner was issued green bonds, bonds that were dividend paying investments in environmentally and socially beneficial businesses. The aquired homes were sold by the government in waves to bring the housing market down in stages. Each new wave of properties lowered the asking prices in the country. By the end of the scheme people really did own their own homes and green innovations were driving the economy and research.
Before, the scheme there were five times the number of empty homes to homeless; after, there were no homeless. Any property that didn't sell the government kept to house those still in need, or make into a community centre, or youth cafe. My mother used to joke that every right wing needs a left wing to fly - that it was only when people from all ways of thinking joined up that the solutions came.
When the age of the machine began, it was also the age of the restoration of humanity. With the universal income scheme came national and international volunteering schemes. Finally, we could do the work we loved, get the training we needed, follow our hearts. It was true freedom. We took care of nature and each other using old school and high tech; we had real communities and festivals and dance.
Our science found cost-free and easy ways to prevent problems rather than the most profitable ways to manage yet never solve them. With less stress we became healthier, we learned more easily, studied because it was the most interesting thing to do. We played sports again, played and laughed so much more.
I think, back in your time you never realised what the media had become. Perhaps once it was innocent, encouraging what folks felt was already there, but by 2018 it was a huge part of leading humanity to be indifferent to the needs of others, the self above all.
It is a fact that testosterone does not make people more violent, but acts to boost actions that improve social status. Thus, in a world where the "best a man can be" is kind, warm, nurturing, protective, loving, the master of a craft, a philosopher, athletic... that's what boys will be. Your media made the boys and girls sick, then there was the social media, the cruel education system, the financial system... Here, in the future, we are amazed your kids did as well as they did under all that pressure, that they fought their way out of so many layers of cleverly designed psychological warfare built because of greed... well that and envy, sloth, pride, gluttony...
We learned our brain science; we learned how to love properly; we learned how to take care of the environment; we use our brains to heal instead of harm; we learned how to value all kinds of work. How did you ever think that someone chopping down a forest for international trade was more important than the mother who stays home to raise her kids?
When words and thoughts are good anchors or control; when role models can become cages or keys; the wise support with wisdom and the foolish man becomes a king.