BENGALURU: The year is almost at an end. Soon, we will be in the year 2020. The coming year has had a special connotation in so many years for many years. It has been some kind of a target year for science fiction and fantasy writers. By 2020, we were all supposed to be scooting around in flying cars, have colonies up in Mars and the Moon, and have a civilisation or few hurtling through space in gigantic space ships towards Earth-like planets in distant star systems within our own galaxy and neighbouring ones. We were supposed to have made contact with one or more alien intelligences, and the world was supposed to have been re-formed because of nuclear war, climate change or other aspects. Food was supposed to run out, nations were supposed to wipe each other out or create blocs.
Hardly any of it has come true. We are not in the Utopia many authors dreamed of, and neither are we in the post-apocalyptic Dystopias that others had nightmares about and written of in feverish prose, earnestly warning everyone.
On another note, given the special significant of 20/20 as far as visual acuity was concerned, it has long been used in the corporate world to create visions of the company. Companies, especially in the early years of the millennium, convinced of their longevity having survived the turn of the century and all the doom and gloom that Y2K was supposed to bring, suddenly were excited about becoming legacy building entities, and the year 2020 came fortuitously with the symbolism of the 20/20 clarity to set itself up as a wonderful visioning exercise. There were umpteen exercises across inbound and outbound training programs were all the corporate honchos, identified future leaders and the voice of the youth got together to create these 20/20 visions.
One does not quite know if these corporate 20/20 vision statements have really directed their actions, and if they are anywhere close to where they had envisioned themselves for the year, given that the last decade or so has been quite a whirlwind of global events, coming with massive geo-political triggers, major recessions, tumultuous political events, economic triggers, shifts in technology and populations.
The vision one setup, despite all the efforts to forecast risks and plan all sorts of mitigations, are hardly ever close to what one had imagined. If with all the power of the collective imagination, the best of resources and the brightest of minds, there was no major vision 2020 that achieved 20/20 clarity, can we as individuals and groups of people really hope to have perfect vision of future? Can love and longing set up visions for the future that will come true?
It seems quite unlikely. Yet, we dream on, make up new worlds in our imagination, and strive to make something of it. We come together, cuddle up and dream. Our vision for 2020 need not be 20/20, and that is quite all right.
The author is a counsellor with InnerSight.