Visualize the Future is informative, entertaining and decisively positive.

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Vivian Jewel Chapman
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1 Visualize the Future: Introduction Visualize the Future...will make you smart. Visualize the Future is informative, entertaining and decisively positive. What s so important about visualizing the future? There are those who believe the future is something that happens; it's the result of fate. So, our destiny lies in the hands of god, the force, or whatever you want to call it Down here on earth, if the future is something that just happens, well, it's somebody else's future, not yours. If you believe this way, then you're just along for the ride. Then, there are those who believe we shape our own destiny. We negotiate the future. We create the future. Destiny is a pretty big word. Shaping the future can be a very practical matter, like finding a job, deciding where to live, who to marry. Still, you ARE on a journey, and whatever's out there, well, it's your destiny. What's it gonna be: fate or choice? So, how do we shape the future? Are we all artists and the future is our canvas? Does an event occur taking us far away from our initial goals, and if it does, how do we respond? The bottom line question is: who's in control? When you look at the world around you, ask yourself, what did I do to create what it is I see? Where did all this stuff come from, you know, cities, buildings, roads, cars, houses, democracy, Hollywood, a pill, jeans, the ipod, and this really great pumpkin pie with all natural ice cream? Are you an inventor? An artist? A visionary? A concerned citizen? Or are you blind, figuratively speaking? Do you not care what's around the corner? Are you ready for it? Are you sure you really know and just might be taking things for granted? This book is a form of appreciation, a dedication to so many who have, in fact, seen the future...and made it happen.

2 What about conflict? After all, you and I, we don't see the same things, do we? I see democracy, you see a prison. I see personal flying machines, you see lawsuits. I mean, we're definitely talking about the tomaaaaatoe/tom-ah-toe thing big time. And the future is just that: it's not only some grand design of the universe, but also something as simple as how you and your neighbor are going to get along day after day. You see a fence; he sees his dogs poopin' in your yard. What s that got to do with the future? Well, you're making decisions that determine...your level of happiness. Emotions happy or sad very much affect your vision of the future. As far as we know, that is, until somebody actually sees one of these parallel universes we've been hearing about, time moves forward. So, anything in front of now is the future. This means one wrong move and you're outta here. Or one right move and you just solved a world dilemma. To go where no man (and woman) has gone before. Ironically, Star Trek took place in the future, but it was more about traveling from one geographical location to another than it was about traveling through time. And notice my little insert of (and woman)? Right off, one of the ways I personally want to change the future is to take the emphasis off man and re-shift it to include women. In other words, not mankind but humankind. Some might believe such political correctness is unnecessary. For far too long, men have dominated this planet and this has got to stop. Women are proving to be as visionary as any man, able to handle anything from winning the Olympics to running a global corporation or head of state. Besides, when it comes to the future, we need all the help we can get. Meteors? Alien invasion? Cracks in the earth? Global warming? Hillary Clinton broke the glass ceiling by becoming the first presidential nominee in America. The book may very well be published before we know if she wins the election. Wow, talk about the future!

3 Anyway, moving from one geographical location to another takes time. That means moving across distances is also moving across time. Once again, that movement across time is forward, what we call the future. And, physics now addresses the space-time continuum is the quest for a Unified Theory. You see, (pun intended), Einstein s famous equation, E=Mc2, has a few problems with it, like missing the dimension of time. But we ll talk about that later. A lot of us definitely would like to go back in time, what we call the past. A lot of us even live in the past. For some, that s a major problem, since it can disrupt our current affairs and create conflict in our relationships, creating uncertainty for the future. In contrast, a vision of the past is indeed a vision of the future. Historians, archeologists and even therapists provide tremendous insight into what we did right and what we did wrong in the past. In doing so, the goal is to learn from our mistakes, instead of, as philosopher George Santayana said, Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. If the electrons in our body are moving forward, that is, we're getting older, we don't see it, because we're too busy living in the past. Before you know it, there is no future. You re dead. But hey, even such a drastic mistake as living in the past has a solution. Being dead might not be the end of the road. It could be the beginning. Understanding what happens after we die is perhaps an even greater mystery than understanding where we came from. Fortunately for us humans, somebody came up with the concept of life after death. We should be really glad they did that because that takes a lot of worry off our shoulders, right? Seems pretty dismal that we live our lives only to end up as dust. The phrase, dust to dust has a nice ring to it, but it s too final. It doesn t include eternity. It doesn t explain the non-physical mind imagination soul spirt. Even if we are just dust in the wind, (the band, Kansas), dust blowing around affects the future. It falls and becomes dirt. Things grow in the dirt. Or, it floats around in outerspace and lands on an alien planet, or maybe

4 joins together with other dust particles and becomes a new planet altogether. It lands in your eye and prevents you from seeing the bus headed your way. So, the point is: there's no escaping the future. If you wanna live in the past, that's your choice. And that's the point: The future is your choice. Psychology uses a number of visualization techniques for such development issues as confidence building, seeing yourself in a new career, or even what kind of life you'd like to see in 6 months, 5 years, etc. Those techniques are covered, but this book is about much more. Visualize the Future covers nearly every possible tool used by humans to see the future. Throughout the world and throughout history humans use a variety of ways to visualize the future, from telescopes and microscopes, to astrology and tarot cards, to storytelling in all its forms (novels, movies, music and dance). The goal of this book is to get you to see the world--see the future through other people's eyes...not just your own. In so doing, you will not only expand your future horizons, but gain a greater understanding of how others see the future, and how this can create conflict or unity. As society moves forward, the goal is not to survive, but to thrive. We don t just want to get by. We want the best life has to offer. And what life has to offer is often what we create. All of the tools and techniques covered in this book are certainly used to view the past and what's happening now. But we've got our eye on the future. Ah, the future. Armageddon? The apocalypse? A deep dark black hole? A place where only others prosper and you, you're just along for the ride? Well, we can't rule out those possibilities. But that's not what this book is about. This book is about a future so full of opportunity and beauty, awe and wonder, that it takes your breath away.

5 And if such doom does lie on the horizon, envisioning the future is the best shot we have at preventing it from happening. Through a microscope someone is trying to find the cure for AIDS. An astronomer in New Mexico thinks a blink on a computer screen is some message from outerspace and just might be alien in origin (watch the movie, Contact). Movies sculpt our future in myriad ways. Science fiction speaks for itself. But every story makes us think, makes us feel something about our lives today, and what we think and do today, as General Maximus Decimus Meridius said in the Gladiator, What we do now, echoes in eternity. A photographer captures a moment in time. Well, what does any given moment in time have to do with the future? A lot. Every time we take a walk down memory lane, we're looking at what we're doing now...and thinking about tomorrow. Photographers, professional and amateur, teach us to see, to look at things a little bit closer, to find meaning, not to mention excite. So, the premise of visualizing the future is that the future is a glorious place. All you have to do is see it that way. If you don't, someone else will. This means understanding how others use these tools and techniques to persuade you into seeing what they see. Afterall, whose future is it? Who decides what happens next? Is it you? Just how will you persuade others to see things your way, your way of the future? How do politicians try to persuade us their vision of the future is the right one? Greed and power are visions of the future. Of course, the greatest tool for visualizing the future is your imagination. So when you read about electron microscopes, Pixar Studios, and fortune tellers, use your imagination. Try to see what they see. Try to see something they don't see. Envision your life and the lives of those around you. This book operates on a new standard for measuring the good and bad of our lives: What are you doing to make the world a better place? And yes, chaos theory is another way to

6 view the future. In chaos theory, every move you make echoes in eternity. The future is an adventure.

CAN I TELL YOU ABOUT LONELINESS?

CAN I TELL YOU ABOUT LONELINESS? I know I get grumpy sometimes, and people being nice to me can make me even grumpier. But my friends let me be myself, even if I am grumpy. But things can go wrong, too. We can argue, and sometimes say