An Illuminating Journey Back To The Future

A journey into the long distant past and back to the future, if you care to join me Marty McFly

Over fifty years ago I started my journey to be a writer. As a young child no sooner had I learned to read and I write than I began to write my own poetry. Nobody else got to read that poetry because it was my private little escape from a hard world into some wonderful fantasy land of my own making.

Fast forward some to the mid 1980’s and I found myself writing for advertising agencies, public relations companies, newspapers and magazines, radio and tv.

I enjoyed working for the print media because I could keep hard copies of my work. Somewhere in a dusty corner of the attic are boxes full of old newspapers and mags gathering ever more dust and spiders.

Things were a lot different way back then. To produce an article like this took a veritable team of professional writers, editors, type setters, proof readers, art directors, photographers and graphic artists. Then you had to have a fleet of vans, and trains even, to distribute the publication all around the country.

Around about 1990 I fell off my perch as a professional writer due to a devastating economic recession in the UK. A lot of us got laid off, quite a few forever, as advertising budgets were slashed due to a downturn in advertising revenue.

So ruinous was the crisis, lots of professionals like me not only lost our jobs but also our careers, our homes and our families. As they say, when financial hardship comes knocking at the front door, love flies out the back window. After some considerable thought, I moved into other areas.

I returned to university to do a post graduate course in education in order to become a teacher. I also became a professional actor, musician and publicity and car salesman. Anything I could do reasonably well to earn a crust. And thus I managed to not only survive, but also to prosper.

I never completely gave up the writing, I just did it for myself really. Songs, short stories, scripts for film and tv, pieces of prose, anything basically to just keep my hand in.

Then along came this Corona Virus Pandemic and turned everyones world upside down. All of my income earning activities came to a grinding halt and I had to think of a way to start all over again.

I decided to try to regain my glory days as a professional media writer and heard about Medium. And hey bingo, I’m here. Except, things ain’t what they used to be.

That team of professionals it took to produce an article like this has gone forever. It is now all the work of one man, me, and an on-line editor. And to be honest, I really do feel like I have just stepped out of a time machine like Marty McFly or Doc Brown. Truth be told, I think I got in the Delorean as young Marty and stepped out as old Doc.The world has changed enormously almost without me noticing it until now. I went to sleep one night in 1990 and woke up the next morning in 2020.

I cannot believe how things have moved on. I can barely absorb the fact that I could if I wished produce an entire newspaper all by myself at home without moving an inch from my workstation. And what’s more, the finished results are really quite stunning too. It has to be said, Evan Williams is a genius to even think of this.

Those madcap programming guys and gals in the backroom have made user friendly templates for everything, and I mean everything. Even the distribution is all taken care of without a single van and driver in sight. Jeez, the only thing it doesn’t yet do is make me my coffee, though I am sure that will come in time.

Now the upside of all this is when I come to do my cv, or tell people in a bar what I do for a living. Writer, editor, proofreader, type setter, photographer, art director, graphic artist, layout Johnny, separation Johnny…..

These days a global team of a million outwork content producers beaver away at home, just like me, to deliver all manner of wonderful pieces of creative writing. And that content reaches an audience of millions all around the world. And not sign of a single double page spread full colour advert to be seen anywhere. Amazing, truly amazing. And think of all the savings of precious resources like paper and ink, electricity and water and gas and oil from that fleet of vans. And yet……

I do miss the tactile side of things a bit I have to admit. I miss the comraderie of the production floor, the banter between highly entertaining typesetters with ink stained fingers in abundance and an endless repotoire of lewd jokes and mucky mugs of coffee.

I miss turning the pages between finger and thumb tip, spilling coffee and biscuit crumbs all over the piece I was about to read and cursing under my breath at my own clumsiness. The pride in seeing something “ wot I wrote “ in hard touchable print. I am something of a dinosaur I suppose. But I like to think a dinosaur who can still write. I will leave that for others to decide.

My final thoughts on this journey of life and writing is this. After all these decades I seem to have come full circle. I am back on my own, like that little boy who had just learned to read and write back in the 1950’s, writing for nobody but me. And that is because unless this article, or any other I dare to produce, does not get distributed, then nobody else will see it but me. The more things change the more they stay the same.

Whatever, I did it for the sheer pleasure it gave me then, and I mainly do it for the same reason now. I might even be tempted to dig out my old fountain pen and Basildon Bond paper note book and bury myself in the cobwebbed, creepy crawly corner of the attic. With a Luke warm Maxwell house coffee and some crumbly McVities digestive biscuits, what more could I wish for ? Ahhhhhhhh blissssssss.

As for the future, who knows ? Maybe somebody will devise an implant to feed content directly into your cerebral cortex. You will be able to just close your eyes and read. Wow, you will probably also be able to order your weekly groceries and think a hot capuccino coffee and digestive biscuits straight to your living room table.

You will not have to move a single muscle ! Just think about the endless possibilities for a second. And there will be yet another implant which will allow me to think my content into the Illumination platform and edit it to my hearts content. All with my eyes closed and without lifting a finger. The future is bright, the future is Illuminating Illumination.

Me ? I will embrace it, of course, and I will have everything brought up to the attic. There I will be enjoying some cerebral time travelling as I rifle through some old newspaper and magazine cuttings and spend oodles of time wallowing in a long, lost past. What’s not to like about that?