As I sit at the Starbucks at E 75th St. and 1st Ave. in Manhattan, New York - I'm reminded of a realization from a conversation with my father: "The coming future is weird and I believe that to be a direct effect of our existence in the present." What I mean is: there is evidence toward the trajectory of our future as a species - wild approximations in science that predict that future generations will lead lives that appear alien to us now. Take for instance, the existence of test-tube babies or in vitro fertilization. In vitro or "in glass" fertilization is a process by which an egg is fertilized by a sperm outside a woman's womb. The process involves the monitoring and stimulation of a woman's ovulatory process, then removing the ovum or "egg" from the woman's ovaries and allowing sperm to fertilize the egg in a liquid under a controlled laboratory setting. The fertilized zygote is cultured for 2-6 days in a growth medium and then transferred to the same or another woman's uterus to complete a successful pregnancy for couples who may be experiencing difficulties with the pregnancy process. We already see the existence of this sort of birthing process in our modern lives, but this sort of science can be developed further and assimilated with more frequency. The normal birthing process, as we know it, still has a mother's ovum being fertilized by a father's sperm within the mother's womb and undergoing the crowning birth canal pregnancy. From the vantage point of a member of a future generation, this sort of birthing process may appear time-consuming and, quite literally and pun-intended, labor intensive. That citizen of the future may look back at our society and view us as barbaric - similar to the way we view any homo-sapien ancestor or even any former civilization prior to our own. Imagine that we take this science a bit further and remove the process of requiring that the fertilized zygote be reinserted into the mother or her surrogate. Might it be, that in the future, we develop a synthetic womb whereby the zygote may be nourished and grown healthily into an infant? As some of you are reading this, you may find this conjecture to be extremely bizarre; and I want to comfort you by saying now that I do not harbor any negative judgements to your reaction. Although I would like to mention a potential benefit to this seemingly absurd birthing process. Surely you can agree that this birthing process would alleviate the painful experience endured by the mother in a crowning-birthing process and free up some time for the mother to resume her normal day-to-day activities.What I'm attempting to offer is an example of a practice that we might unconsciously overlook, but may one day be the common practice in our society. Again, the quote that I find difficult to shake and I say a bit humorously now: "The coming future is weird and I believe that to be a direct effect of our existence in the present."
I grew up as a first-generation American to Vietnamese family. My parents had emigrated from Vietnam to America as a result of the Vietnam War, and I am grateful that they did so. I was raised with the floating notion that this was their gift to me - a chance to live a free-er life in the land of opportunity. To make sure that I fit-in in school, my parents adopted English and the values of an American lifestyle. If you ask anyone who knows my parents, you'd soon learn that they weren't like the "stereotypical" Asian parents. We spoke English at home; went to a diverse school; and assimilated the American culture. But even so, as I grew up, I couldn't shake the troubling thought that my parents had to leave their home country to a completely foreign home - and that's not even the half of it. As an adult, I sometimes have the recurring fear that that experience of war had affected their psychology and thereby transferring that psychology on to me. I feel pretty normal; but enough about me. The intention of this blog is not to talk about my background or the effects of war, instead, The Foreground is a space for me to take notice of the advances of society and sift the details that encompass a particular advancement to bring what may be overlooked in the background into the foreground.
The idea here is similar to an analogy of the human eye. Our optic system is structured in a way that our focal point of vision is only represented by a small portion of our eyeball - the fovea. This means everything else that we have not focused our vision on is out-of-focus and is visually pieced together by our brain. The intention of The Foreground is to examine and re-examine the details surrounding a focal point and present the benefits of alternative ideas. The propositions that I make in this blog may challenge cherished systems and practices, but the intention is not to catastrophize. The end goal here is to promote alternative thinking, generate meaningful conversation and debate, and presume a future where our problems will be resolved.
The topics of this blog will primarily delve into discussions on the incumbencies of society, culture, economy, psychology, politics, technology, science and the environment. I say this all with a little smothering of cheese: each essay will have the intention to benefit our well-being as humans of this world we call Earth - or at the very least, a benefit to you as food for thought - again pun intended. With your input, we hold the conversations that will shape a global economy - an economy of language and an economy of valuation. Just think of it this way, we hold the stakes every day to create a renewed and greater society. So let's begin this journey together and let our visions come into the foreground.
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