6*6 Fantasy Series —5

Imagine you can travel to the future (any future period and location)

Choose the year you would like to travel to: 2030? 2040? 2045 or 2050?

Let me take you to a journey in time. 1995 — 25 years ago. I was preparing for university entrance exams. I was 16 and I have never had access to a computer in my life. We had no computers, no Internet, nothing. I had no idea what the Internet was and what it was for.

Look at how much the world changed in 25 years.

• Apple was almost going bankrupt in 1995. Apple has surpassed 2 trillion dollars now.
• Amazon just started its web site in 1995. Amazon has now surpassed 1.7 trillion dollars now.
• Microsoft just released its Windows 95 package in 1995 and it was the first time that users could use Windows to connect to the Internet. Now, Microsoft's market cap is 1.73 trillion dollars.
• Google did not exist in 1995. Larry Page and Sergey Brin were just meeting each other at Stanford campus. Alphabet (Google) market cap is now 1.12 trillion dollars.
• Facebook, Alibaba, Tencent, Netflix, Tesla, Uber, Airbnb, Spotify, Kickstarter, Stripe, Instagram… None of these existed.

Now, I want you to imagine how the year 2045 will look like. Where will today’s technology companies be in 2045? Where are the new unicorns that will become tomorrow’s 100-trillion-dollar companies?

See how much the Internet has been transformed since 1995 and what the Internet ecosystem has grown into. Software has eaten the world now.

How will tomorrow’s Internet look like, compared to today? It is difficult to imagine it, isn’t it? Some call it Metaverse. Some call it MirrorWorld. Our lives and brains will be in this new world. Perhaps we will be avatars in AR/VR worlds and simulated zones, similar to what is depicted in the Congress movie:

When we tend to think about the future, we tend to assume that most things will stay similar and trends will continue in a linear fashion. This is almost never the case. The world is changing drastically in front of our very eyes. The changes are very dramatic. We are experiencing a technological breakthrough every month now. Look at what we have just seen this month.

First, we have seen the emergence of GPT-3. Here is what I wrote about it:

Then, we have seen Neuralink’s demo last night. Here is what I wrote before the demo:

Hundreds of innovations and technological breakthroughs are brewing now. It is a perfect storm out there and we will witness tremendous advances in many technologies:

• 3d printing, Internet of things, blockchain, AR/VR;
• autonomous vehicles & electric cars;
• drones, robots, machines, algorithms, androids;
• artificial intelligence technologies;
• brain-machine interfaces, voice assistants, wearables;
• space exploration, asteroid mining, and terraforming of Mars;
• renewable energy technologies that will address the climate emergency.

These technological advances will amplify and build on each other, transforming whole industries and job markets. Tomorrow’s jobs and organizations will be vastly different from today.

In today’s exercise, I want you to imagine that you are going through time travel. Imagine you can travel to the future. You will choose six periods in the future. You can choose any year: 2030, 2035, 2040, 2045, 2050, 2100…

We are in constant need of dopamine and dopamine comes from curiosity, novelty, imagination, and learning. One of the best ways to get our dopamine kick is by exploring the future. In each futurist novel or film, we are immediately transported to new realms of imagination. It is captivating to take an immersive journey into an age of space travel and artificial intelligence. This is your chance to go out of your daily routines, obligations, and confinement. This is your opportunity to go on a futuristic adventure. Choose your year and place, place yourself in that context, and start dreaming.

6*6 Fantasy Series

This series (6*6) is about fostering our ability to use imagination and find fascination in strange places. Strange realms of imagination, fantasy, and fiction. In this series, I aim to bridge the worlds of creativity, fantasy, and imagination. In total, I present you with six imagination adventures or fantasy challenges. I will be developing these challenges during the months of August and September. The goal of these adventures is to help you expand your muscles of imagination through designing new worlds, universes, or stories. What you are reading now is the 5th installment of this series.

You can find the first 4 installments of this series below:

Adventure 4: Imagine you can travel to the future (any future period and location)

In this challenge, imagine that you can travel in time. You can go to any time and context in the future. You will create six futuristic adventures for yourself and you will write six short stories about your experiences. You can choose any historical period, place, and setting to immerse yourself into.

Choose the years you would like to travel to: 2030? 2040? 2045? 2050? 2070? 2100? 2138? 2220? 2580? 3800? 10000?

You will write six stories or adventures set in six future settings. To get some inspiration about different periods, check out the following links.

Some of the links below are truly mind-blowing — check them out to increase your futuristic understanding, literacy, and imagination.

Now, you will imagine yourself in your selected year in the future. Then, you will create a character for yourself in that world. You will write a scenario for your role in that setting and incorporate this story into that future year/era. You might read or watch futurist science fiction to immerse yourself in that era.

Imagination and immersion are your friends while you are writing. The closer you can get to imagining the fabric of daily life and how it feels like living in the future, the better you will be at describing your story. Imagine that you are transported there, and you are living in it through your storytelling. Choose your own period and adventure. Immerse yourself in that year or era. Create your character. Write down your story.

As you write, loosen up. Do not judge yourself. Make sure you do this for fun. You can be naive, goofy, and foolish in your storytelling. No one will judge you.

You will be constructing stories set in these worlds and try to make them compelling and exciting. Imagine yourself as a character or as a hero in that futuristic period.

You can use the following points to create your stories or adventures:

1. Describe your character and his or her point of view. Profession? Background?
2. Describe the futuristic era and the context and immerse your character in this setting.
3. Think about the storyline of your character and how it progresses. Describe the journey: What is the problem? Where is the call to adventure? Where is the tension/conflict?
4. Describe the unknowns and the challenges your character goes through. Describe the overall goal/mission of the hero. Define their success and failure.
5. Incorporate surprises and twists along the way — create a compelling story. Create some risks and rewards for your character.
6. Think of a compelling and satisfying finale if you can.

You will create six short stories set in six future years and sketch an outline of key ideas for each story. You do not need to aim for fully developed stories. You just need to write a minimum viable story idea.

Do not judge or evaluate your ideas — just keep writing for about 5 minutes to create your main story or plot. Do not stop writing. Imagine that your hands have their own imagination and trust them. Keep your hands moving and do not think too hard. You will make it fast and practical — do not aim for a perfect story. Just an overall idea is fine. This is meant to be for fun — just play and mess around. Improvise as needed. Try to surprise yourself and your brain.

Best of luck and have fun!

You can learn from the following online resources on how to write futurist novels, stories, or fiction. Please check out the following resources for guidance and inspiration:

Finally, here are some brilliant movies all set in the future. You can watch or learn about some of these to get more inspiration:

Fahri Karakas is the author of the Self-making Studio. You can explore more here.