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"Okay," he said, "lay it on me." His beanbag chair cringed briefly before yielding to his 240-pound onslaught.
Pacing the floor, I told him of the fantastic freedom I had experienced a mere seven hours ago. His angular face remained impassive, but as I finished, it broke into a huge grin.
"Well, now," he chuckled. "I can understand why you were sorry to wake up. Leave it to you to produce the summa cum laude dream of all time!"
I shook my head slowly. "But I don't think that I, Jon Lake, could produce a dream like that. Really, Karl. I mean, the new words, the detail... I can't even imagine that kind of stuff, much less dream it."
"Okay, Jon. Maybe it was the Jon Lake of 2150 who produced the classical wish fulfillment dream for the crippled Jon Lake of 1976. After all, that's what your dream girl, Lea, said, wasn't it?
"And by the way, did you think of asking your dream computer how they were able to develop a utopia like 2150 in just a hundred and seventy-some years? Like how was it possible to go from a world of competition, conflict, distrust, hatred, overpopulation, pollution, ignorance, and monumental selfishness to a world of cooperation, love, and wisdom? Did you think to ask that question, Jon? Sure would be nice to know the secret." Karl laughed. "Maybe we could change the topic of our dissertation, put you to sleep for a week or two, and get your C.I. to write it for us!"
"Seriously, Karl, I did ask about some of those things. C.I. said that our society, which she called the micro society, perished sometime around the year 2000, along with most other micro societies of the Earth, due to their inability to cooperate with one another."
"So, it ended," Karl paraphrased, "not with a whimper, but a bang."
"No, C.I. spoke of factors which worked over a long period of time to bring about the destruction of micro society. It wasn't sudden."
I hesitated with a new thought. "Hell, we're right in the middle of it! C.I. said the Macro society of 2150 had its begi
"Oh, great," Karl scoffed. "We can expect it any time now. How's it all going to happen?"
"I don't know, Karl. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Whichever came first, the chain broke a link somewhere along the line 'cause they don't have the same theories regarding human behavior in 2150 as we have here in 1976.
"C.I. disagreed with our theory that most of human behavior is completely determined in. the first few years of a child's life. C.I., granted that early inadequacies in nutrition or intellectual, emotional, or physical stimulation can do great damage, which, bolstered by our limiting belief systems, could preclude further significant development. According to C.I.,, though, all the fears and hang-ups that we blame on our treatment during childhood are open for restatement, redefinition, and remodeling by our 'applied and practiced belief system.' We are not the pawns of our upbringing any longer than we want to be! We are free agents to be whatever we decide we want to be as long as we believe it's possible and are willing to put in the effort and discipline necessary to bring it about," I explained.
Karl whistled, "That's a pretty heavy statement, Jon, and a pretty heavy dream."
"That's not all, Karl," I continued, anxious to test more – of my new data. "C.I. called us 1970s people 'micro man.' Says we see life and reality through the limiting view of a microscope-making mountains out of molehills-while almost completely ignoring the unifying, harmonizing macrocosmic realities that lie just beyond our limited view."
"Micro man, hum," Karl thought out loud. "And these... what I'd think of as 'peace-creating' realities are right there, but just out of reach?"
I was delighted to see Karl caught up in C.I.'s "future" philosophy. "I wouldn't say really out of reach, Karl. It's more like we're wearing blinders. We put blinders on a horse to keep him from being frightened by what he would see if we broadened his vision, and we do the same thing to ourselves. We keep our blinders pulled in close enough to block out or condemn things that are different from what we're used to. This leaves us with an extremely limited, but very comfortably microscopic, view of reality instead of a limitless, but. more challenging, macrocosmic view of ourselves, others, and our relationship to the universe."
"What you're saying, Jon, is that micro man is the normal average 1970s person like you and me."
"I guess so."
Karl went on, "This approach would support the theory about mental illness occurring in direct proportion to the degree of separation one feels from his fellow man. You know, the blinders separate us from other people-protect us, so to speak, from what we fear. Ha!" Karl delighted in his new conclusions. "So we protect ourselves right out of our mind! Tell me, oh great 'wizard of dreams,' what's the religion of the future?"
"As I understand it, Karl, it's not a religion as we know them-you know, churches peppered all over the land worshiping some all-powerful, judgmental God who peers out of the sky to shake a finger or throw a bolt of 'lightning at those who go astray.
"It's more a way of life," I explained. "They call it Macro philosophy; and I understand it contains the essential core of the Taoism of Lao-tzu, the Buddhism of Siddhartha Gautama, and the Christianity of Jesus of Nazareth."
"Great! The best of all possible mystics we 'micro men' have never been able to understand. How do they train everyone to become a great mystic philosopher so they can understand this Macro philosophy?" There was more than a touch of skepticism in Karl's voice.
"That's where the Macro society comes in. You see, the basic metaphysical premise of Macro philosophy is that– all is one perfect, macrocosmic, indivisible whole. It's the ancient idealistic concept that all is perfect, all is mind-one universal mind. However, in 2150, according to C.I., they don't just talk about it, they live it, by organizing their society on this premise." I raised my hand to delay Karl's interruption.
"It's obvious that the Macro society could only work if people accepted the basic premise of Macro philosophy, that all is one. So the Macro society is set up to teach its children about this Macro perspective from which they can practice the one commandment of Jesus-to love one another."
"Jesus H. Christ! Jon, man is an animal We can condition, reinforce, and program almost any type of behavior, but we can't change the basic animal nature of man. We can't pump out a whole generation of little Jesuses!"
"That's true, Karl," I said soothingly. "They don't disagree with you. C.I. emphatically states that the Macro society could not exist until micro man, with his limited perspective, his limited beliefs, became almost extinct. Micro man is an animal because he views himself as an animal. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, Karl. We become that which we believe ourselves to be. Our beliefs limit us to the short span of time between the birth and death of our physical bodies and the 'accidents' of genetic and environmental inheritance.
"Macro man, however, does not see himself as an animal. He understands that we are constantly creating our selves with every thought we think. He knows that his every cell responds to his every thought, thereby making of him that which he believes himself to be. Macro man knows that he is not the victim of circumstances, but rather the designer of his own destiny, the creator of his own reality. He knows that his life holds only those experiences which he himself chose for his own growth and-"
"Wait a minute," Karl interrupted, waving his hand to slow me down. "What, may I ask, is Macro man? Is he the same as 2150 man?"
"No, I don't think we could presume that. A person is begi