Another day in the life of a futurist

I wanted to offer another “day in the life of a futurist” installment. I did a couple in 2017 and 2018, so this is overdue.

To make up for the delay, I chose an extreme day:

October 6, 2022, 12:01 am EST — I am somewhere over the Pacific Ocean or Central America, as the United Airlines flight carries me north from Santiago, Chile, where I’d addressed and met with staff and users of a big ed tech company. It went well, I think. Good conversations, a chance to tour a local university, networking. I’m fascinated by similarities and differences between Latin American universities and those elsewhere.

Spanish-speakers were very kind with my fumbling language practice. I repeat: “Estudio espagnol, pero comprendo muy mal!” I tried to improve by listening to presentations in both Spanish and English, thanks to hard-working simultaneous translators and little earpieces.

On the plane I sleep fitfully, turning to Richard Powers’ superb Overstory (2018) when I could.

I am pleased by how this newer Kindle handles both dark and light settings.

At one point lightning ripples through the dark clouds underneath the plane. I try to capture the spectacle with my beaten-up Android phone, but keep flubbing the timing. I try to remember passages from Edmund Burke on the sublime (1757) but fatigue and travel scramble my brain.