This morning I read a powerful substack from The Free Press. You can read it here:
The timing of this post was curious for me. This week, I am keenly in touch with my past as I deliver eight boxes of books to the local library for their fundraising fair. Books are such a part of my life. Each transports me to a place and time. I often put a note in the front of the book about when and where I purchased it, encouraging me to re-live my travels, bringing my past into the present moment.
Many of the books were 30 years old or more. It is time to let go. The past may travel with me in my memories and adventures. And I can always look up whatever it is I need.
But there is one book (among many!) that I simply cannot part with: Arthur C. Clarke’s The City and The Stars. It took me years to find a physical copy and I keep one on my Kindle. It’s the sort of story that I dip back into, time and time again.
It offers a view of humanity’s evolution eons into the future, where a synthetic culture self perpetuates. At the end of one’s lifespan a “person” enters the central computer to be reborn at some unknown future date. This keeps the mix of the population changing, while society doesn’t change at all. It’s a bizarre time warp void of curiosity or adventure, but full of pleasure and computer generated experiences.
This was written in 1956.
Part of the social fabric of this synthetic society is fear. Fear of anything that lies outside the walls of the city. But the founders of the city foresaw the need for disruption to prevent total cultural stagnation. So it was that Alvin was “born”.
Alvin is a unique. He had never before walked the streets of the city. He lacked the inbred fear of his fellow residents. He found their computer generated “adventures” limited and boring. But most of all, Alvin was curious.
His curiosity led him to discover an ancient underground. He boarded a transport that took him to Lys, a civilization that is intensely intelligent and human, with agrarian roots.
These two visions of man’s evolution, lived simultaneously, some distance apart. Only those in Lys were aware of their brethren in their synthetic world.
I won’t ruin the story for you. But it’s well worth a read. It’s a story about consciousness and presence, love and fear, adventure and complacency. It’s a story of a potential future, told from the past.
I have to hope that this new series from The Free Press will include Arthur C. Clarke, a man that looked to the future with such great prescience and a sense of adventure. Have a great Saturday, and get the book!