11/30/2023
“A DREAM OF A POTENTIAL FUTURE”
By James Zametz
I’m imagining a future “day in a life” for the world where we wake up from our well rested sleep in our down comforter and Down/seaweed gel hybrid mattress made in the village from the sheep and the Shepard who is quite crafty with fabrics and some sheers.
Our lights, already familiar with our daily routine, slowly bringing the light into the room as we like it, recreating the morning sun rise and giving us Vitamin D and activating our Melanin to help us wake up easier.
We walk into the kitchen and the window blinds slowly raise up automatically revealing either a simulated view of the sunrising over a mountainous horizon, or a beach setting rising over the ocean, whichever we prefer. Or we actually live in a place that has our preferred view and it just reveals it.
Our automatic coffee maker already sensed us waking up and has already started a pot, getting it all ready, just how we like it.
The AI smart house has taken inventory of your groceries in the fridge and has given a shopping list to the community farm, while also preparing a meal for you for the day using ingredients that are most likely to go bad if not used so that no food is wasted.
Your morning routine, whatever that may be, reading the daily community news, messages from friends, family, or coworkers, is on a projected wall where you sit and enjoy your coffee, tea, mushroom or herbal conconction, water, toast, etc.
The days potential activities are shown to you and prioritized according to your habits and preferences. You’ll be spending the morning harvesting tomatoes and strawberries with your neighbors, maybe milking a cow or a goat, turning the compost, helping your other neighbor on a projects they started adding onto their house.
Or maybe you’ll be helping your neighbor setup their online store or doing someone’s books for them. Maybe you’ll be sending off those orders for the items you source from the next village over or the village across the country. Oh! There’s a village meeting coming up where the topics of discussion are going over the new bio gas system that will provide natural gas to each home and compost materials for the landscaping made from the villages black water waste that goes down the smart toilets.
Maybe you’ll go for a walk along the trail and sit under a beautiful oak tree and finish that book you’ve been flicking at for the last month while the kids in the village school are paddling around the pond in boats learning to fish and how Aquaponics works. How they get there water in their homes. How it’s filtered and that it comes from the sky, collected, then spread out to all of the village.
Or maybe you go visit Sallie, who’s working today on the solar, wind, and hydro system that provides electricity for the village. You heard that later on the kids in the school will be there to learn about it and you’d like to help teach the class because you know a lot about these systems. You really like the look on the kids faces in wonder of how the new world works. The way we finally figured out how to live in harmony with nature.
Then, you get a message from a friend who lives in the next village over and they say that they are having a dinner and invite you over, so you schedule an Autonomous carrier, a single seat version that you can rent, to take you over there later, because we don’t need cars anymore. Not individually own cars anyway. It’s supposed to rain so the carrier will keep you dry. On a nice day you would schedule an electric bike or scooter. Maybe this weekend you will take the shuttle into town and deliver those produce items that the village sold to the city markets and take in an old movie at the theater downtown. You’re leaving it open. Ralph said he could take it if you didn’t so it’s no biggie.
Then, you remember that you needed to do some pruning on your fruit trees in your garden so you get in the village app and you rent a pruning tool from the village library. The library not only carries books that were donated by village members, but also a tool shed, a craft shed, an electronics shed, a culinary shed, and also is the core communal a space for village gatherings, meetings, potlucks, classes, and markets days. It’s the heart of the village.
Oh! It looks like they will be having an advanced canning class on Thursday! Gonna sign up for that! They always have great snacks at these.
As you walk down the pathway to the pond, you look around and wonder why it took us so long to build these communities. Why we built multi story boxes and grid like mazes of toxic shells, like cubicles, made them all the same, made everything we need in our daily lives too far away to walk to. Why we put so much effort into competition and “beating” others at life. The greed. The wars. The maniacal hunger for power.
Why we had people living on the streets freezing, suffering, starving, when we have plenty of food, shelter, and care in the form of mental health, drug rehabilitation, and just plain caring for another human being?
Why did we take so long to evolve when we had the modern technology and old world knowledge to create a utopian world? A real life Eden.
Luckily, the children paddling around in the boats learning how to fish will never know that world. They know only collaboration, community, living in harmony with the earth and its systems, technology that makes our lives better instead of enslaves us to mindlessly scrolling all day wishing our lives weren’t so miserable and pointless. They will never know the isolation of living in a tiny box that they can barely afford, to drive a crappy car that could break down at any moment, sit in traffic, dreading the next 8-12 hours of their day, to barely make enough money to pay the bills, just to rinse and repeat the next day and the next day, and the next day, until their employer decides that they don’t need them anymore so they get let go, only to hopefully find another similar job that is the same thing. Slaves to the industry of making a few wealthy. Feeding the machine of capitalism. Consume. Consume. Obey.
These kids will never know that world and it puts a smile on your face. You sit down and take in the morning sun and the morning dew glistening on the ground over along the woods edge. You don’t need much now. You can plan your day how you want it. You can contribute to a system that directly benefits you and your neighbors. You are in control. You and your village decide the success and happiness of your lives. Not a group of white men in a board room somewhere on the other side of the world. Not your “elected representative” who is bought and sold by big corporate overlords hell bent on ruling the world.
You know that your little community provides everything that you need. The networks of eco villages spread out across the globe, all different and unique, all pieces of the puzzle. All living a life of intention and purpose. All happy to be a part of it. To contribute because they live a life of purpose. You can see it right when you walk outside your front door.
Well, think it’s time to go pick some strawberries and get my hands in the soil.
Oh! Looks like one of the kids caught a huge catfish!
It’s gonna be a good day……..
Won’t it be nice? Let’s make it a reality folks.
www.panthercitycottages.com
Building a dream of the future
