What Will or Won't

Were we ancient Greeks, now might be the time we’d consult the oracles.

The talents of the oracles, as we might recall from our studies of the Classics, resided in prophetic opinions and predictions. Considered portals through which the gods spoke directly to man, oracles occupied a higher pedestal than mere seers who read the signs sent by gods via the more mundane though not necessarily less accurate means of reading animal entrails.

This time of year, predictions abound. No longer is divination required. Nor, presumably, the sacrifice of a goat. Anyone can make predictions. And they do.

Perhaps most prolific in this endeavor are the cable news pundits, although, increasingly, their prediction-making has evolved (devolved) into a year-round endeavor and in some cases more closely resembles pronouncements of divinely inspired prophetic vision. Or so they think. Politicians also predict. This could be a possibly perilous effort were it not for the right they maintain to declare later that it’s us who misunderstood their intention – a distinct throwback to the oracle of Delphi who often gave vague or ambiguous answers conducive to open-ended interpretation and to the certainty of the inevitable spin that came later when a prediction didn’t pan out, the fault, obviously, of an improper interpretation. 

This time of year, film critics predict the Oscar winners. Some try to be clever, putting forth two lists – one of who will win and another of who should win. Their opinions in the latter case are clearly meant to impress, reflecting as they do a high-brow preference for the obscure indie, art house or foreign film, most of which seem to require subject matters that are decidedly grim. The sports arena is not unfamiliar territory for predictions. Nor is prediction-making the sole province of sports writers or announcers. Here in Chicago, any Cubs fan’s perennial prediction seems pre-destined. Back on the island, knowing what’s inevitably wished for if not outright predicted in another match-up between the Red Sox and Yankees nearly makes of anyone an oracle.

Of predictions, columnist James Gorman, writing in the New York Times last month, declared, “It’s a fool’s errand to make precise predictions about the future. Even the famously prescient often fall on their faces.” He cited Arthur C. Clarke who in 1945 foresaw orbiting communications satellites someday mimicking the Earth’s rotation. But Clarke also predicted that humans would land on Mars in 1994, that the last coal mine would close in 2006, and that electrical monitoring would all but insure the demise of professional criminals by 2009. 

Gorman went on to say that he would wisely refrain from making specific predictions for 2011. However, still venturing on thin ice, he decided to predict what won’t happen in the upcoming year. Among his predictions: “Human beings will not evolve, much.” Meaning we’re not likely to experience big evolutionary changes such as growing gills or flippers so we can live underwater – though that wouldn’t be a bad asset, I reckon, when living on an island. Likewise, he predicts we won’t find any “good-size life in outer space.” And let’s face it, for most folks, outer space life hasn’t much, well, life to it if it’s only some suggestion of a microscopic extraterrestrial or an enhanced digital image of possible water on a distant planet and not something with a big head, extrasensory perception and the ability to move around while making some kind of audible sound. Also, in 2011, Gorman predicts that Neanderthals will not be cloned. Though we’re likely, I suspect, to get another sheep somewhere, no? And, says Gorman, the virtual colonoscopy will not replace the old-fashioned, really invasive kind. Darn.   

Gorman’s right: predictions are tricky. They can backfire – as can our personal new year’s resolutions. You know, how we all make them, how we all break most of them. Best then to keep resolutions to yourself unless you’re as adept with post-breakage spin as a politician. Likewise, making public your new year's predictions is going out on a limb. And yet some of us can’t resist making them.

So here I am, teetering out on a limb in late December with a few of my own predictions. No, not about political outcomes, potential medical breakthroughs or technological marvels. I’ll leave those to the experts, heeding the words of Socrates: “The ancient oracle said that I was the wisest of all the Greeks because I alone of all the Greeks know that I know nothing.” Instead, personal, random and, I admit, mostly insignificant, these are just a few of my predictions for what will and won’t happen in 2011. (Disclosure: no oracle was consulted in their making. And all were made with the resolution that next year I’ll refrain from the impulse.)

In 2011:

Too many people will still confuse its with it’s. And way too many people will continue overusing the exclamation point!

Too many people will still leave a restaurant with their carry-out and not first check on the contents in the bag.

Too many tumors will still be found, the size of which will likely still be compared to fruits, as though, whether a lime or grapefruit, this makes such news any less devastating.

Many of us will wind up throwing out most of our leftovers before they’re eaten.

We’ll continue to find immense satisfaction in cleaning off our desk or deleting old emails.  

We’ll still be offered way too many choices of toothpaste, laundry detergent, soft drinks and cereal.

In cities such as this one, too many plastic bags will still catch in winter tree branches where they will twist and flap for months. 

Any dinner guests who offer to help by loading your dishwasher will never do so in a satsifactory way.

Privacy will be harder to come by.

There will still be so many ways to die, and at any given moment. And many moments, hopefully, in which we will pause and recognize this.

At least one of our favorite things – a lipstick color, say, or an ice cream flavor – will be discontinued.

The grocery store where you routinely shop will again re-arrange its aisles.

Despite claims to the contrary, and regardless any blurry videotapes or indistinct audio recordings, the ivory-billed woodpecker will not be found.

And, finally, I agree with Gorman that in 2011, “No one will upload himself or herself (memories, personality, neuroses, creepy desires) into a computer.” Talk about creepy. Try to imagine such a thing. Although it’s nice to wonder if this might then render Twitter and Facebook obsolete. No more “friends” or “tweets,” over-used and often annoying terms particularly when morphed into verbs as in “I want to friend you but first I have to tweet a friend.” Prediction: in 2011, we’ll still be tweeting and friending, friends.