The Other Side of the Mountain

By Robert V. Ussley

Imagine pulling off at a mountain overlook. There’s food in the car, cold water in the cooler, and a whole afternoon with nowhere you have to be. The weather is beautiful. If it gets too hot, the air conditioning works.

“I can’t really get much more comfortable than this.”

That thought came up in a conversation about technology and where it might be taking us. The stuff we’re able to do with phones is crazy to me. When you really start to think about it, we basically have something like telepathy. We can speak to someone across the world or turn down the air conditioning at home without moving from this spot.

It seems so benign, so simple, but actually kind of insane.

It used to be magic.

Now it’s in our pockets. We can have a voice speaking to us all the time. All the time. Somebody in the conversation had a good way of putting it: “When I was a kid, people who talked to themselves all the time ~ oh my, they’re crazy. Now they’re all business executives.”

We’ve gotten used to some pretty strange things.

And we’ve got better tools. I hope they help us find things we couldn’t find on our own. If it’s AI that takes us over the next hump of scientific achievement, cool. Physics and stuff like that is beautiful. I like the thought of understanding a little more of the world we’re standing in.

I like the thought of people having enough.

Suppose it works. Suppose the machines do most of the work, and there’s enough food, enough shelter, enough of everything to go around. I can’t imagine what could be more comfortable than being able to summon anything at any moment with a click of a button.

You sort of just live. And then you just hang out.

There are people I would happily spend more time hanging out with. We could take a long lunch. We could sit outside until dark without thinking about the alarm in the morning. That would be nice.

A Whole Afternoon.

Still, I can imagine being perfectly comfortable and getting restless. Having everything I need within reach, then getting up to go somewhere. Comfort can take care of a lot. It doesn’t tell me what I want to do with the afternoon.

I believe that human beings make things better, and that conscious observation is basically the point of life. Being here to see it. Taking an interest. Having enough time to follow that interest somewhere.

Across the valley, a narrow trail disappears over a ridge.

People have an inherent desire to explore and find things. Not every person. Some people would be happy to stay right here, and I can understand that. But get enough people together, and somebody is going to look up at that mountain.

“This valley’s perfect. It’s wonderful. But on the other side… on the other side of that mountain, you know?”

You can be pleased with the place you’ve found and curious about the place you haven’t. There could be another lovely valley over there. There could be a muddy field. I think I’d like to see it either way.

The phone can tell us where the trail goes. There’s a name, a distance, a photograph of the view from the top.

We look it up.

Then we take some water and go see.