Joanna sighed and tapped her pen on her open binder. She looked up at the clock above the door and then to the assignment written on the blackboard: Write a short story in which you make a prediction about an aspect of life in the future. What a stupid project.
Jo turned her attention to where the class had brainstormed possible topics for the paper. There were the usual, almost autonomic responses: family, media, technology, war - and then her own contribution, social interaction. The class had laughed uproariously when she had suggested it as a possible topic. Leave it to Jo to put forth the most complex and complicated idea to work with.
Well, this time would be different! Jo thought. This time I will make an effort to write about the easiest, most brainless topic I can think of, technology. Perhaps in the future, society will become so dependant on technology that it will forget how to function with only the basics!
Jo was about to start writing when another thought began to manifest itself in her mind; isn't this already true? Society is already so obsessed with the invention of countless "time-saving" devices. Efficiency was long ago compromised in favour of the quicker, cheaper deal. Joanna decided to scrap that idea.
Jo sighed again. She wasn't getting very far at all. Hoping to gain some insight for her topic, Jo looked around the room at her classmates. In front of her and to the right, students were scribbling furiously on their papers, desperately hoping to receive bonus marks for pieces handed in ahead of schedule. To her left the students chatted quietly amongst themselves, not yet feeling the pressure of an assignment due next week; they would write it later, at home in front of the TV perhaps. Watching music videos or sit-coms starring dysfunctional families.
A new idea formed, Jo began to write an outline for her story. What if, read the first sentence, what if technology ruled home life to a point where family members became unable to interact with one another? She wrote a few lines more then stopped, dumbfounded. Rising from the paper she began to see images of her own family life; a father insistent on "modernizing" the house, a mother campaigning for a self-cleaning oven in which to heat TV-dinners and a 13-year-old brother who seems to be learning about women, sex and life by spending multitudinous hours roaming the internet.
Jo scrapped that idea, too.
Glancing at the clock, Jo noticed that she had another 40 minutes before lunch and decided to try a new perspective. One positive aspect of the future, she thought, is that we'll put an end to war. Using a Wite-Out correction pen, Jo erased her old work and, when the liquid dried, prepared begin anew.
Jo tried to write, but her thoughts kept returning to the "Brave New World" described in Aldous Huxley's novel of the same name. It, too, strove to rise above the throes of war, but the peace attained was a mere delusion. The society in Huxley's novel still battled instability, individuality, and the right to feel pure and unconditional love.
Joanne twitched involuntarily as a thousand thoughts erupted through a dam of obscurity and cascaded down before her eyes. Feeling dizzy with emotion, Jo looked around at the faces of her classmates. In this small group of maybe 30 people she could see everyone whom Huxley feared in humanity; from the Alphas who would inevitably succeed, to the Epsilons who were predestined to fail. Yet none of them could see exactly how well they fit their respective roles because society has conditioned them to behave in this fashion.
Each of us, Jo realised, upon being born is bombarded by society's sense of what should be. Jo remembered countless times being torn apart by peers because her clothes weren't "right", her hair wasn't the "proper" length, or because her ideas and opinions were "wrong". They weren't putting her down to be mean, but rahter were savagely defending all of the morals they had been conditioned to believe in.
Suddenly Jo understood how John Savage must have felt, being the indvidual in a world where "all men are conditioned equal".
"Maybe they were better off," Joanna said aloud, referring to the society in Brave New World. "At least they were aware of what they were doing to themselves."
The class tittered. Jo was talking to herself again.
