Status check...

When I was a little kid, I used to dream about 2010...like spaceships and alien life forms, robots and cities in the sky. But 2010, although different from the past, is not so futuristic. Life is truly very much the same, folks still trying to make it. Materialism is the religion of choice, and the word freedom can be used to justify just about anything-from personal behavior to the acts of states. Again, not so different from 1910. I mean the technology has advanced...but does that mean the people have?

I would argue that communication, in all its various forms, has broadened in a way that will drive the world to both its highest and lowest levels in the future. For instance, right now upon posting people in the far reaches of the world can read my thoughts, nearly instantaneously. But just the same, someone can hack your account and wipe out all your money in an instant. All via the communication super highway...I mean know the proper term is information, but all these various systems are communicating so more than anything it is all about communication.

Communication. It seems there are so many ways to communicate now that we seldom use the old fashioned sit down discussion of days past. No, it is a text or e-mail at this point...we don't even use the phone we carry (at all times) to talk anymore. At least not with our mouths. It is all about the world knowing everything about you-what you just ate, read, saw, did...but in actuality they all know nothing. Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc. etc....all so everyone can socially connect every second of every day. This is our present...my generation X's futuristic tomorrow that Luke Skywalker prophesied about in a galaxy far, far away. Well, not quite. But this is what 2010 has brought about.

Still, with all these forms of communication there are no less wars, 1/2 of all marriages end in divorce, the high school dropout rate is alarming and poverty...it is still the same. It adds fuel to the debate on whether our history, American or global at this point, is a linear progression. In other words, is man continually progressing towards an elevated state of being? Is that even possible?

I do not know the answer to these questions, or the multitude of others that fall in behind them. It really all depends on how one sees the world. To some the atomic bomb, was progress...to others, the beginning of the end. Nuclear energy is now the topic of discussion amongst the world's countries. Who should be allowed to possess its infinite power, and capability of destruction. No one. But that is not the debate. Again, it goes to how one sees the world. The world in the year 2010.

Where are we headed? Humanity that is, what is the destination for our people? There are so many opinions and now, with the communication capacity of the web, those opinions are multiplied by the billions. There is no consensus to life anymore. There are pockets of belief and conformity-but the fragmentation of thought continues by the second. Still, in the midst of what some may say is chaos-love continues to survive, children are laughing, people are getting old, racism, sexism and hate are diminishing...we are changing. Not all good, but not all bad.

2010.