I’m going to let you into a secret…
Once upon a time, long before aeroplanes were invented, humans could fly!
We flew gently with the winds, gliding gracefully over the land.
But as time went by, we thought it would be easier if something else did the flying for us, and we called that The Future.
In The Future we could fly further, faster and higher. High enough to even reach other planets!
So, we started building The Future, packed with every technological gizmo and invention we could imagine.
And she did fly.
And she did go far.
And fast.
And, oh, so very high.
So, we kept building and began loading everything that was precious to us inside her.
But eventually, we weighed The Future down.
She started falling.
The humans wondered what we could do to keep The Future flying.
So, we started tinkering, adding a new engine here or an extra wing there.
But still, The Future was falling.
Around this time, some humans rediscovered the old stories from when we could fly.
Slowly, with lots of imagination and many bumpy landings, some of us even began flying again.
Not very many, and not very high at first.
But high enough to fly up to The Future.
And just enough people to start unloading the most valuable things, to save for everyone else.
By now, The Future was low enough in the sky that everyone on Earth could see she was falling.
And see the people flying around her, offloading the most treasured things.
As they watched, the humans on the ground remembered that they could fly too. They began taking off in great billowing clouds; laughing as they flocked together, murmuring glorious shapes in the sky.
And just like that, they remembered what it was to be truly human, floating as effortless as an eagle on a mountain updraft.
Then they each flew up to The Future and recovered their most beloved things.
And now, freewheeling through the clouds carrying only the things they really needed, the humans realised that the thing they had built wasn’t really the future after all.
The future was them.
And they were happy.
So, no one noticed when The Future crashed to earth in an unlovely pile.
Main image: Photo by Samir Jammal