Definitely not. There are – literally – robots on the streets where I am today. There were cows on the streets where I was a year ago.
I don’t find picturing the future to be a productive endeavor. A year from now the robot wave will have hit Bangalore and cattle in the streets may be a fixture of Atlanta (because raising one’s own cow will be the only way to afford beef.) [Not to mention, there’s a significant chance that I’ll be in neither of those places.]
Shopping for crazy. I’ve become aware that – during some time periods, it’s mandated that there be one bat-shit insane person per subway car — and that, if there are more than that, they need to spread out evenly and give the stage to one among them — a Car Crazy Champion, if you will. After riding in a car with a urine-drenched crack addict who paced the length of the car eating (and sloshing) some pungent food from a Styrofoam container, I realized I should have been in the next car with the very nicely dressed and clean-cut man in what seemed to be a self-created and self-imposed uniform reading aloud from the Bible. I no longer concern myself with what car gets me closest to the appropriate exit, rather I shop around for the least objectionable crazy.
sunlit garden
to distant mountains —
every shade of green.
between snowy banks,
a silvery river
slips through cold mountains.
As many of the ones that aren’t war-torn or underwater as I possibly can.
I hope they say, “He was kind of loud, never kept to himself, and we always thought he might be a serial killer.”
Tiger Riding for Beginners 