Dreamland Book Blog: July 2012

Wednesday, July 18, 2012 6 comments

Guest Post by Laxmi Hariharan

Who wants to be a futurist?

“I am too far ahead of my time” my father often complained to me in my growing years. I now know that he took this as the main reason to behind being misunderstood. He perceived his ideas to be too radical to be appreciated and often felt miscast, as if he had been born fifty years too early. Cut to twenty years later and here I am, claiming with a straight face, that I am a futurist. It sounds so over the top when I say that right? Futurist conjures up images of someone who is just too cool for the real world. But over the years as I read what others (who call themselves trend-spotters, future-proofers or futurists) say about themselves, I found there were certain traits I recognized, prompting me to put myself into this quirky group. Here I have compiled my research into a quiz. How many of these questions strike a chord?

1. Have you travelled and lived in at-least four different countries by the time you were thirty?

2. Do you prefer Percy Jackson over Harry Potter? But in general would read YA over any other kind of fiction book?

3. Did you never get over your fascination with the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland? Perhaps you also fell in love at first sight and married your childhood or teen sweetheart?

4. Is fantasy and science-fiction your favourite movie genre and do you believe that The Fifth Element is one of the most entertaining movies ever made?

5. Are you obsessed with vitamins, anti-ageing packs, anti-oxidants, flower essences, ginseng & assorted herbs from all parts of the world which help regenerate brain cells, physical cells, keeps your eyesight sharp etc. You get what I mean?

6. Were you one of the first in your peer group, to get an email address, and to get onto twitter and Facebook, and the rest? And now you are like so all over social networking platforms then living in the real world is a struggle? It is quite normal for you to have bizarre tweet conversations with others about the relative merits of Loki vs. Thor? And when you sit around a meeting room table with grown-ups they still can’t understand the appeal of twitter over FB – duh!

7. Are you fascinated by technology & Einstein and you just don’t know why? It’s just that they are really cool?

8. Are you very instinctive, and believe in the unsaid, the unheard, the unseen… We are not alone.

9. Friends accuse you of being ‘spaced out’; being ahead of your time and you often struggled to fit in as a teenager. In fact it is the same now; except you have learnt to embrace social niceties.

10. Have you always dreamt of being an entrepreneur and even now find it difficult to follow rules. Do you feel sometimes that you are stuck in your rebellious teenaged phase? Actually children do make more sense than grown-ups any day.

Did you say yes to eight out of ten of the above? Congratulations! You are one of the misunderstood, socially awkward, geeky, fantasy inspired nightriders. In my experience though, either you say yes to all or to none; that’s just how we futurists are rather extreme. Are you a futurist? Do write in and share your experiences.

About the author:

Laxmi Hariharan was born in India. She lived in Singapore and Hong Kong and is now based in London. She has written for various publications including The Times of India, The Independent and Asian Age. She is inspired by Indian mythology. When not writing, this chai-swigging, technophile enjoys long walks in the woods and growing eye catching flowers. Her debut novel The Destiny of Shaitan is available on
Amazon http://tiny.cc/szqsew.

Reach Laxmi at https://www.facebook.com/laxmihariharanauthor, on twitter at https://twitter.com/#!/laxmi. Read about the inspirational avatars she has met on her writing journey at http://www.laxmihariharan.com/