People Of The Perfect World

Perfect World story (The ILLUMINATION)

I'm going to start this post by sharing with you the most pertinent detail to developing the kind of society we can all be proud of. Usually writers reveal things like this near the end to build up expectations, but I'm not a tease; so go ahead... take the milk for free.

The secret to creating a Perfect World is... raising Perfect World people.

Shocking, huh? I know. I'll give you a moment to pick yourselves up. Dum dee dum...

Okay, all brushed off?

We know that only some of us current Earth dwellers are PW material-- too many of us have been badly baked, to use a cooking metaphor. Only our future generations, correctly raised and educated, will be a match for the Perfect World habitat. The simple fact is, most of us are too fucked up to function well in that kind of environment-- our phobias and esteem issues would hinder our reach for inner peace, as well as messing up the enjoyment of others. Why is that?

Many people, smart people, believe that humans are born with certain near-autonomous behaviors which cannot be overruled during moments of urgency. Our survival instinct is a good example. But many of those behaviors aren't instinctual, and instead are taught to us from infancy by 'defective' teachers (the 'nurture' experience), making it impossible to find people without 'defects' until infant training is handled by experienced parental units.

No, I'm not talking about robotic parents-- I mean well-coached parents. To exemplify, let's use psychiatry. Would you prefer a doctor or a trainee to run your therapy sessions? I'm sure most of you chose the doctor. I did too. That's because when it comes to yourself, you want the best help available, and that is far more likely to come from someone with a lot more training and knowledge.

With that in mind, wouldn't it be sensible that the people who raise babies should be the best trained for the job? And to that end, wouldn't it make sense that, if you are planning to have a baby yourself, you should take exhaustive classes to prepare yourself to be an excellent parent? I'll answer for you... YES IT WOULD.

And yet in our world, ANYONE can have a baby, raising it ANY way they want. No classes, no oversight. The only time there is any intercession at all is when there have been complaints of potential physical abuse (which only occurs if the behavior is observed... which doesn't often happen in remote locations, or behind closed doors). Then the child is often ripped from its home life and thrust into a strange environment called foster care, often run by people who are doing it only because they want the monthly government check... hardly a better situation. Once they achieve adulthood they join the rest of the world, scratching and fighting and competing against others to earn decent enough money to live a comfortable life. Is there any question WHY our society is so screwed up?

In order to attain a Perfect World, we have to respect its future citizenry. Those would be today's toddlers. Raise a nation of better babies, and when they are old enough to run things, they will change society for us. To that end I present a story of two couples living during the hundred-year Perfect World changeover. They are in the middle of an intentional population decline, or PopDrop, a guideline to bring about a 1 billion person world, which is put into effect following implementation of Podschools and Parenting Permits.

Mandi and Seth Corell are a prime couple for parenting-- they are patient, selfless and mature and have a wide streak of empathy running through their daily lives. They are on the fast track to receiving parental permission and having their implanted birth control removed.

Fora and Briaan Talell are another matter. Their potential is undisputed, but they are still young and as such are still somewhat self-centered and erratic, immature and impulsive. They would like to have a baby, but are having trouble passing the tests for the Parenting Permit:

Mandi Corell exited the clinic office, smiling broadly. It was confirmed! She couldn't wait to tell Seth the good news-- he had been waiting and hoping for such a long time! There had been so many tests and classes, such stiff tryouts and eliminations, and then the waiting... and that was just to find out if they would be among the finalists! Then they were chosen, and yet another battery of tests followed that... only this time they were medical. All together, over two years had passed since that first discussion, and now it was finally coming to pass!

She dialed him again, but he still didn't answer. Probably absorbed in another experiment, she thought, frowning. Then she caught herself-- his work was important, because what he was doing would allow matter to travel almost as quickly as communications do, when it was finished. But it was still in the testing stage and Seth was essential to the project's success, so she needed to be patient.

After the third try, she switched and called her mother. "Mandi, did it happen?" her mother began breathlessly, before even issuing a 'hello' to her only child. "Are you...?"

"YES!" Mandi screamed, at roughly the pitch of a dog whistle. Her mother echoed her across the city, both clapping and hopping joyously. "But Seth doesn't know! I can't reach him!"

"Too bad for him... he should have been with you. That job of his..."

"Mom, it's the most important project on the planet now! And he's the lead designer... it's just a very busy time right now."

"I thought Perfect World eliminated the need for crazy work hours."

"You know it does, mom. Like I said, he's the go-to guy on this project. It's his design, his idea and he's been there for every major test. I have been, too... it's not like I don't see him-- we have an apartment on the Cityship and I'm there all the time!"

"And that's another thing, honey... you shouldn't be flyfloating in your condition!"

Mandi laughed, then scolded her mother with mock ferocity. "Anya Mettan! I've only been in this 'condition' for an hour!"

"Still..."

"Oh, come with me, mom! You know you love the Cityship."

"Well... okay. I'll be at your door in... 3 seconds."

Mandi heard a knock at the door and laughed. "You called me from the skycab, didn't you?" She opened the door and there was her mother, sheepish grin planted on her face.

"What can I say? I LOVE the Cityship! Now let's go... the skycab is waiting!"

•--0•0--•

Floating off the coast of South Carolina, the Cityship was conceptualized after war ended and nations suddenly found themselves with armadas of floating scrap metal formerly called warships. No longer one to waste, America put out the call for a new concept, and the answer was the Cityship. Binding scrapped warships and aircraft carriers together as a foundation for a floating city where deep ocean exploration could be conducted safely, regardless of weather or water conditions was a challenge, but unique nanomaterials enabled the entire city deck to flex safely with the waves beneath them. The tall buildings above experienced an interesting rising and sinking effect, but there was no longer any left-to-right swaying, a near- disastrous effect discovered on the earlier, smaller Cityship.

Now the ever-expanding Cityship was an impressive 22 square miles, a floating postage stamp on the Atlantic equal in yardage to almost 11,000 football fields, or about the size of Manhattan, leading to the ironic moniker 'Manhattan Project Island'. Drinking water was distilled directly from the ocean, power was generated from never-ending ocean currents, and first two floors below street level were dedicated entirely to farming. The waste supply of the Cityship, home to half a million inhabitants, was converted or recycled. The ocean remained unpolluted by the enormous metal leaf floating upon it.

Mandi and Anya descended calmly onto the Cityship's airfield and were tractored to ground transportation. "Take me to my man!" Mandi excitedly told computer controlling their vehicle, a magnetically powered two-seater Bubble, which darted off towards Seth's lab.

•--0•0--•

Seth Corell was poring over the latest modifications to his plan when a younger man burst in without knocking. "Say, Seth, whaddaya say?" he quipped, taking a running jump toward the long glass table and sliding its length on his rump, slipping past the edge and dropping ingloriously to the floor.

Seth looked up from his work, mildly amused. "I suddenly remember why you work here, Briaan... comic relief! You should be more careful... you could squash your brain, landing on it that way. How about some coffee?"

"Love some!"

"For ME."

"Oh, right." Briaan dusted off his ass and poured two cups, adding five sugars to one and noisily slurping it, leaving the other by the pot. Seth shot him a withering glance, then walked over and took his coffee. Briaan continued, "Have you heard from Mandi? What's the good word? Is there a Seth Junior or Mini-Mandi in your future?"

"I turned my phone off. Can't think about that now. I have to calculate the correct V-Post Trajectory or the receiver platform's gonna be covered with a lumpy and immature goo that was once called my gofer Briaan."

"THAT would suck."

"For you, most certainly. But I'm almost done with the calculations, and then we can try another biomatter test." He switched gears. "What's going on with you and Fora's parent permit? Have you gotten to Stage 10 yet?"

Briaan pursed his lips, forming a raspberry. "We can't get past the Stage 1- Compatibility test. I blame Fora. She blames me."

"Keep trying... you're bound to be accepted sooner or later," Seth continued under his breath, "whenever you grow up, that is..."

"What was that? Did you just mumble something...?"

"You two just need to get on the same page, Briaan, and stop having a clash of egos over every aspect of child raising. She'd make a wonderful mother, and you'd make a great... clown!" Seth dodged a well-aimed beaker, chuckling. "Kidding, kidding! Just watch Mandi and I, and do what we do... we're getting close to completion. It's just dotting the t's and crossing the i's now, so to speak."

Briaan laughed. "So to speak indeed, Seth... by the way, what happens when you dot your t's, anyway?" He noticed movement by the door and glanced over. "Hey, Mandi! Hey look, it's Mandi!" He gave Seth's wife a little hug, then saw another figure behind her and warned cleverly, "And look! It's Anya, too!"

Seth whirled around, nearly knocking over his diminutive mother-in-law. "Oops! Hey mom!" He hugged her and pecked her cheek, then turned to his wife. "Mmm, c'mere, you! What a nice surprise!" and hugged her narrow waist, warmly kissing her soft, inviting lips.

"Not half the surprise I have," Mandi replied, a coy smile forming. "Guess what? I'm..."

Anya pushed in and shouted, "WE'RE PREGNANT!" completely stealing her daughter's thunder.

Mandi laughed, surprised. "MOM!"

Seth looked stunned. "You mean, finally, we're...?"

"Yes! We've passed Stage 10! We're going to have a baby!" Tears were in Mandi's eyes.

Sadly, Briaan said, "Fora and I can't pass the compatibility test."

"Parenting is about swallowing your ego, Briaan," Anya said, squeezing his arm.

Seth hugged his wife tightly. "A baby..." he breathed softly into her chestnut hair, and nuzzled her neck for a long sweet moment. Then he remembered what he was about to attempt and gestured to his work. "I was just about to try what I hope is the final inert biotest." He placed another tray of biomatter under the sphere. He asked Mandi, "Here sweetheart, you can start it, if you like."

"What's going to happen?" she asked, absorbed in his excitement.

"This little tray of cheese, grapes and other biomatter will hopefully disappear from here, and reappear on the far side of the lab looking exactly like it does now, and not like smoking, bubbling plasma."

"Really! How will it do that?" his mother-in-law asked.

"Think of the Universe as being..." Seth began, looking for a prop and finding one, "as being all around us, like this coat. Attached closely to the Universe but invisible to us is something called Null Space. Imagine it is like this coat's liner. Null Space doesn't follow the same laws of physics as ordinary space. If we enter it, we can exit anywhere else in ordinary space. Anywhere! Well, I found a way to enter Null space, and control where matter exits by using two syncronized platforms, which find each other in Null Space. Hit the button on three, my love. One...two... THREE!"

Mandi pressed the button and, hanging in the air, the clear crystalline bubble about the size of a Volkswagen began crackling. A swirling blue charge formed around it, coalescing into a shimmering cloud which drizzled from the orb, down onto the platform below, enveloping the biomatter. The very air around the device was buzzing and humming as pigtail sparks shot through the interior. On the far end of the lab, barely visible some thousand feet away, a matching device was similarly crackling. With a sharp vacuum-slapping pop, the cloudlike field collapsed in, then sprayed outward in all directions, like a bucket of water turned to steam. Everyone blinked as the cloud burst outward, enveloping them. It cleared almost immediately and they turned their eyes back to the platform which held the biomatter test plate. It was gone! Seth ran over to the wall transport, the others hot on his heels, and shot to the other end of the lab. There, beneath the glass orb's twin, was the plate of food, a wisp of cool steam gently escaping!

Nobody spoke for a long moment, then Briaan breathed quietly, "Did it...?"

Seth replied nervously, "I'll check..." and ran his tester, sweeping it over the plate, eyes round. The others held their breaths-- Seth had been working on this new technology for five years as one of 15 labs around the world that had all been given the data of Seth's initial discovery, trying to make a working prototype. He finished the sweep and gingerly poked the cube of cheese with his finger. It reacted like cheese. He turned to them, broad smile on his face. "I think it worked!"

The group cheered. Briaan popped the cork on a conveniently available magnum of champagne and toasted, "To Seth Corell, inventor of the 'go anywhere in a flash, Null Space... transportation... thingee'?"

"We've got to do better than that," piped Anya. "How about the 'Flash Drive'?

Seth said, "A 'flash drive' is a hundred year old technology, mom. We might as well call it the 'Null Space Cable Car'!"

"I got it!" Mandy chirped. "The Null Drive!"

Seth rolled it over his tongue. "Null Drive, Null Drive... I love it!"

Mandi sank into her husband, planting a warm wet kiss on his mouth. "Looks like we have two reasons to celebrate, my love," she whispered, pressing her belly against his.

•--0•0--•

Word of his success spread quickly. He made his most recent calculations available to the other teams, and confirmation came back-- this was the breakthrough they'd all been searching for. Now all that was left was the rigorous testing that would ensure everyone's safety, before it gained wide use and retired all other methods of travel.

With his part of the project over, Seth was able to devote full attention to his flourishing wife and their coming child. It was an exciting time for them, as the number of applicants for surrogate parents were truly staggering-- it seemed every qualified person within reach wanted to help raise the child of Seth Corell, inventor of Null Drive, and ironically, thanks to Null Drive, every person in the world was now instantly in reach!

They reduced the number of applicants by Data Weeding, refining and stiffening the requirements each time, until there were only a thousand which fit their desires most closely; those they interviewed simultaneously in a local 3D chamber, asking each question to all of them at once, then compu-sorting the answers. The top hundred they met personally, and chose seventeen, with eight alternates so that no assistant worked more than ten hours a week, according to Perfect World Guidelines.

They moved themselves and their surrogates to an infant care facility, which was like a large hotel designed for babies; each family had a wing where the whole entourage lived. The building itself was dedicated to raising infants and keeping the caregivers comfortable and rested. They would remain until the child was ready to emerge into their next stage of development; at that time they could leave and try new experiences, or settle nearby to remain in the child's life.

A couple of months following their successful biotest at the Cityship lab Seth and Briaan, as project leaders, were invited to an unveiling of the first Null Drive Transit System. There were stations in New Angeles, Aden and West New York and more were being built in every other major city around the globe.

Another team had built on Seth's findings and made a refining discovery-- they found a way to keep the rift open, like a doorway. Exactly like a doorway, as Seth came to learn. Gone was the blue smoke and lightning arcs-- one simply approached a dark doorway and entered their destination, and with a shiver the doorway developed a picture of the other side. Only it wasn't a picture... it WAS the other side, and could be walked through as easily as one enters a room!

At the reception they were treated to pomp and circumstance, 2120 style, and were asked to create the first imprint in the Honors Room. In lieu of money or other recompense, a person's full life of accomplishments was readily available for viewing in the Honors Room. Every contributor was in this three-dimensional holographic suite, and could easily be found and their story watched; it was a continuous tribute to the accomplishments of the Perfect World people.

Seth created his imprint, and as he passed the imprinter to Briaan, his friend whispered, "Good news! Fora and I listened to your advice, and now we're approaching the final parenting test!"

"Great, Briaan! I knew you could do it! Now my daughter-to-be will have a little friend to play with."

Briaan's eyes went wide as pancakes. "You're having a girl?"

Seth smiled broadly. "Just found out this morning. Seems we both have good news!"

Things are going well for the two couples, AND for Perfect World. Being certain that you want a baby, preparing for it, and having help when it arrives seems to be a winning combination for producing well-adjusted adults, and well adjusted adults are essential for the next step in our evolution.

Ask yourself what is the matter with today's people. Why are we so... yuchy? Okay, not all of us... some of us who are alive today are the inspiration for my Perfect World ideals. If you think that marching down the narrow path of goodness as dictated by your bible will make a Perfect World person, think again. Though you may try to live your life as Jesus might've, you face the same problems. You are in the midst of a society which holds other ideals to a much higher regard, a society where kindness is pushed away to make room for greed, where respect is bested by selfishness, where the goodness of person yields to a person's goods. We all do it. I do it. We fall into lockstep with the rest of society because it's the only way to flourish... too bad flourishing happens at the expense of happiness.. or goodness.

Someone has suggested to me that perhaps we shouldn't bother trying to change a corrupt society, but instead modify one which is already well on its way to becoming a Perfect World. Perhaps they are right, but I think there are enough of us who would like to see America change for the better, to make it actually happen. Iceland, Sweden and other socialist countries are not the bogeymen our politicians suggest-- their fearmongering about too much government just isn't panning out. While we may feel, at least on a subconscious level, that the citizens of those countries present a 'holier than thou' face when speaking of their political success, there is no doubt that there is actually some success to speak of.

Single-minded purpose is what gets things done in those countries. In the United States we encourage broad political thinking, which is reflected in the wide diversity between our two largest schools of thought-- the liberals and the conservatives. Because we offer 'freedom of speech', the ability to say whatever is on your mind without criminal punishment, certain underhanded leaders see that as a method to sway political viewpoint, and feel free to espouse philosophies which are not only backward, but are even factually inaccurate. They are 'spreading lies' and painting them as truth, hoping that loudness and numbers will convince others they are correct.

They are not.

Follow the guidelines that accompany every post here on the 'Finding The Perfect World' blog. They are located near the top, on the right, in the blue box entitled 'Perfect World Primary Guidelines'. If you find that your behaviors fly in the face of one or more of those guidelines, you are probably not behaving an a manner conducive to bringing about a Perfect World.

But if your conduct reflects Perfect World Guidelines in every way, I beg of you (and I mean this from the bottom of my heart)... HAVE MANY CHILDREN! Raise them well. Teach them the guidelines. And have them have many children, too.

And if you are a lawmaker who believes in, and follows, the Perfect World Guidelines... try to pass a law which PAYS the BAD parents to NOT have children. Doesn't seem fair? Wait 30 years and see how much better our country becomes, and you'll see how fair it was.

Every time I see the movie 'Idiocracy' I fear that, on America's current path, we are headed directly into it. That scares the crap out of me, because I don't want to see our farmers watering their crops with Gatorade!

Copyright 2009 Bruce Ian Friedman