In a restless search for new opportunities and new ways of living, the mystery and the

promise of distant horizons always have called men forward.

One of the big things that I say about Flash Forward when I talk about the show is that

I am really not trying to predict the future.

The point isn't to say that aliens will come to Earth, or that an evil billionaire

will put up so many wind turbines that it changes the climate, or that we totally will replace

athletes with robots.

The point is to try and think about what those futures might entail, so we can figure

out how to move towards them, or away from them.

New things to do, and new ways to do them, telephone, electric lights, automobiles, aircraft,

all are symbols of better living, new places to go, and new means of getting there.

Part of the reason I avoid trying to make predictions is because I don't like being wrong.

It's easy and often quite fun to look at past predictions about the future.

My personal favorite comes from a book called A Hundred Years Hence, The Expectations of

an Optimist, written in 1905, where the author predicted all kinds of things, including

the end of stairs.

The plan of attaining the upper part of a small house by climbing on every occasion a

sort of wooden hill covered with carpet of questionable cleanliness will, of course,

have been abandoned.

It is doubtful whether staircases will be built at all after the next two or three decades.

It's also easy, although perhaps less fun, to feel as though we ourselves right now are

just on the cusp of something.

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