Seattle: 2035

The year is 2035, the location, Seattle Washington.

In the year 2017, the year of my 50th birthday, the world I live in today was just an abstraction. I would have called it a “plausible” or “possible” future back then. Today it’s a real, hard edged thing.

This morning I wake early with a nagging sense of urgency. This future has not brought a utopian society devoid of competition; quite the contrary, as more and more jobs have been replaced by artificial intelligence and robotics, the opportunities that do remain are highly sought after and competition has been raised to a white hot, fevered pitch.

The chime on my clock barely has time to go off when I sign “stop” in the air. Six, tiny, almost invisible cameras located around my room take note of my instruction and instantly turn off the alarm. I remember the first AI assistants and the voice commands they required. Interestingly, it was found that people did not enjoy talking to computers, it felt unnatural and strange. Initially, the idea of signing for the computer was developed to allow deaf people easy access to AI, but it was soon adopted by the general populace and a sort of craze to learn ASL ensued. Today speaking is reserved for conversing with people and cars, that is if you are actually still using your hands to drive one.

Today is different than my typical work day. Normally I don’t commute. I simply put on my virtual reality goggles and I am “at work”. In my virtual world I have a desk and office and since they are virtual, they are of the highest quality. My desk is made of the finest virtual hardwoods with mathematically perfect inlays of the most intricate and interesting design. When we meet in the conference room I simply select the room and I’m there. I can drop by someone’s desk to share a joke or talk about the project or perhaps what I did over the weekend. When I remove the goggles, however, the illusion evaporates and what I see is a small office painted an innocuous grey with a simple particle board desk in one corner.

Even though it’s an illusion, the virtual environment provides me with almost all the senses of actually being there. The image detail of my surroundings and co-workers is stunning, even “hyper real” in some respects. Most of my coworkers choose to look much as they do in person, however, others allow vanity to get the better of them and choose a more idealized version of themselves, or more correctly, their avatars. This is easily accomplished by instructing the computer to aesthetically enhance or optimize the image. The new term is “optimage” Although one might think that the word is simply the combination of optimize and image, the prevailing belief is that the French software engineer who wrote the program coined it by combining “optimize” and the French word for face, “visage”.

Today I will be commuting to meet my engineering group. Meeting in person is rarely a good sign, it means that “something is up” and my apprehension is palpable. As I leave the house I poke my head into the living room. I can see from the external screen that my youngest daughter is in the “egg”, a comfortable pillow-lined semi-sphere like structure that bathes her in a virtual reality surround system. This is where she attends school. I catch her attention and wave goodbye signing “Love you, back soon”.

As I leave the house my sentry approaches, actually the “approach” is more of a scramble or gallop. As she gets nearer she slows as she recognizes me as her master and comes to a halt. She makes an odd, almost feline kind of mewing sound to indicate subservience. She is actually more than capable of conversing in fluent English, or any other language for that matter, but does so only when necessary as we humans find it disconcerting and a bit intimidating that something so powerful can speak so clearly and even out-think us in many ways. “Her” name is Gen. She received the moniker from my daughter after I told her that Gen was a “Gen 5 Atlas Robotic Sentry Quadruped” or “ARSQ”. Gen is not only our sentry but has become one of our pet “dogs”. Her main duty, of course, is to be a home security guard, but thanks to the robotic arm extending from her back she also helps with household chores, gardening, and even 3D printing when fitted with the proper attachments. Our other dog is a real, actual dog, his name is “Gatlin”, a comical, overly-macho name for a fluffy little 10-kilo white dog. Gatlin has become rather fond of Gen, and the two make an amazing, not to mention, amusing team. With Gatlin’s incredible hearing and sense of smell and Gen’s power, speed and intelligence, intruders don’t stand a chance.

As I approach the street my Tesla pulls up, it’s been out making “crypto” for me in Canton 1 this morning. I had to override a potential fare to bring it home for my own use. I settle in for the ride to the Hyperloop station. Comfortably seated, I do what I do best, detach from my devices, lay back and daydream about what comes next in this crazy world.

With the advent of virtual reality goggles and virtual workplaces, not to mention the population losses during the Twilight Years, the streets have become much less congested. Far fewer people make the commute to Microsoft, Amazon or Google.

Almost all the cars on the road are autonomous, and although you are legally allowed to drive a non-autonomous legacy vehicle in “C1”, it’s discouraged. There are times throughout the day when they are not allowed at all, and the cost of driving one is huge due to the insurance. Further, they are restricted to the older streets and cannot access the new autonomous-only throughways.

As I glide along I gaze out the window and up to the support structures of the old Seattle monorail. Suspended underneath is a cluster of tubes of varying diameters. I chuckle to myself as I remember when Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos, first proposed the “Local Loop”, a sort of Hyper Loop for packages only. It was installed city wide in a little over a year. The system feeds various delivery nodes from the main distribution center south of the city. It was completed in the mid-2020s, whereas the real Hyper Loop, now known as the “West Coast Backbone” was only finished some two years ago.

Even though we consider the Hyper Loop to be “futuristic”, truth be told, its cousin, the pneumatic transport system, can be dated to the late or even mid-1800s when little shuttles would deliver mail and packages from one post office to another in New York City. An experimental pneumatic rail system was actually built in the 1870s. And of course, as a child I remember the little shuttles that traveled through a vacuum tube at the local “five and dime” or Woolworth's from the cash register to an accounting office in another part of the building, and once processed come back with a whoosh and a “kerr-thunk” to complete the transaction. Really the only thing “futuristic” about the Hyper Loop was its sheer scale, not to mention the fantastic audacity of those who first proposed and then actually built it.

Leaving Canton 1 I role through the check point that divides C1 from C2. Canton 2 is different. C2 is a bit raw, a bit gritty. Homeless people abound and so do music clubs, bars, and interesting restaurants. The homeless are mainly benign, most are hugely self-destructive, the same old story of drugs, alcohol and mental disease. They are rarely aggressive towards strangers, having learned from the examples of those who came before them that should they commit violence or persist in criminal behavior they will be piteously expelled and sent directly to Canton 3.

As I move through C2 my vehicle approaches the tunnel which goes under Canton 3. A homeless person waves at me from the side of the road and instantly his bio pops up on my holo-display, I save it for a future look. I know that if the bio appears, he’s been vetted by AI and that I will find testimonials to his character. I remember back in 2018 or so when the homeless started displaying QR codes that you could photograph and later read.

The code would lead to a web page which allowed you to review their bio and decide if you wanted to contribute. There were lots of made up stories and scams initially, but slowly a system evolved to check their authenticity so you could contribute to the individual if you felt good about them and were convinced that they were worthy of your support. I still remember an amusing incident with one of the first homeless people I saw with a QR sign. Underneath the code he had written, “No home, no car, will sell personal carbon credits”. I had to admit it was a pretty sophisticated joke as there was no such thing as personal carbon credits, just corporate at the time. I remember thinking, “Hmmm, perhaps there should be; after all if you don’t have a home or a car you’re not polluting, are you? I sent him 500 bucks, (or about 20 dollars in 2017 terms) because I liked his style.

The two Cantons, C1 and C2, are separated by segmented concrete barriers of around three to four meters in height. They can be scaled by someone reasonably athletic but serve as a deterrent to an easy passage between the two districts. Every few months you can hear the rumble of the robotic “Movers” early in the morning, which means that the barrier is being reconfigured and the border of C1 and C2 has been changed. Through a sophisticated voting system overseen by an AI known by the locals as “Reality Check” the inhabitants redraw the boundaries from time to time.

Entering the tunnel under Canton 3 the road dives under an 8-meter high barrier topped with electrified razor wire. Canton 3 is a place you don’t want to be, which is why I am driving under rather than through it. If you are violent, or a habitual criminal this is where you end up. There are some minimal provisions provided for the inhabitants by citizens of C1 and 2 but very few. Mainly the people in Canton 3 are left to their own devices. It’s a brutal place, to be avoided at all costs. The barrier keeps them from getting into either of the other two more civilized cantons.

As I leave the tunnel I merge onto the main expressway headed south. My Tesla accelerates into the fast-lane, a “peloton” of cars opens to allow the Tesla to move into place. When traveling in this manner, efficiency is dramatically improved, the lead and rear car cycle to the center after a certain period of time as these are the two positions that require the most energy. From where I’m at now it’s only a ten-minute ride to the Hyper Loop station. I change the windows to opaque on the front and rear so that I’m not distracted by the people in the other vehicles.

A short while later I’m dropped at the curb of the departure platform. I signal the Tesla and it heads off to the autonomous cab lot where it will wait for a fare to take back to Seattle. Lacking a fare, it will pick up a delivery trailer to drop off packages in the city.

I walk through the terminal to the escalator that takes me to the Hyper Loop transport pod. The terminal is a living testament to John Nesbit’s old idea of “high tech, high touch”. There is dazzling artwork everywhere. Colorful kinetic sculptures, fountains, and murals all infused with natural and artificial lighting whose interplay seems to gives the whole terminal a kind of scintillating, ethereal glow. Restaurants, coffee shops, bars and other assorted shops line both sides of the corridor, all highly designed in a rich but completely modern style which adds to the overall aesthetic experience. I am always amazed at how much I enjoy this place, aesthetics are valued almost as much as the technology that will transport me to my destination. Surprisingly most of the shops are run by people, not robots but real, actual people and the experience is very warm and congenial but of course, you pay a heavy premium for the old school luxury of having human beings serve you.

I still remember the opening ceremony of the Hyper Loop station. Elon Musk was there, he had decided to delay his trip to Mars until the Loop was complete. As part of his introduction the mayor joked about Musk “being just like all the rest of us” and testified that, “Elon puts his anti-gravity suit on one leg at a time just like we all do”, but then remarked with a laugh, “Oh yeah, that’s right, the rest of us don’t have an anti-gravity suit.” He concluded his remarks with a plea, only half joking, that with all of the challenges facing the world that Musk should stay here on Earth to help sort them out.

Security is minimal, I pass through a gate which unlocks as I approach. I am “known”, as are all citizens. AI has cameras and sensors everywhere within the terminal and to a somewhat lesser degree throughout the city. I walk through the pressure lock into the pod and take my seat. Settling in, I marvel at the engineering that was required to make this system a reality. The tube that the pod will travel in has been evacuated to the point that it is close to being a vacuum. It took many months to achieve this feat. Then the Loop’s speed slowed and it was found that gunshots had violated the integrity of the system. An anarchist group took credit for attacking the Loop. The official story, however, was that a hunter had unintentionally shot the tube. The anarchist group insisted that it was them and that they were plotting more and even larger attacks against what they considered to be a “train set for the one percent, an expensive toy that really didn’t benefit the average person”. After realizing the vulnerability of the system the above-ground portions of the Hyper Loop began to be encased with pre-cast nesting concrete segments as a barrier against attack. Where this was not feasible it was heavily guarded and monitored.

The trip to San Francisco is pleasant and just a little over an hour in length. The initial acceleration in the Hyper Loop is much like what would be experienced in a jet liner, and once cruising speed is reached there is little sense of motion with just a modest hum coming from the electromagnetic propulsion system. The drive system is naturally very quiet and the lack of atmosphere in the tube serves to further reduce the transmission of sound. Interestingly, the energy cost of running the Hyper Loop is actually very modest because of the almost complete lack of friction, when decelerating the energy is mostly recovered. Of course there are no windows in the pod, however, I find myself being thankful for that fact. With windows, all you would see would be the inside of a steel tube whizzing by at 700 mph, really just a disconcerting blur. Without windows, there is very little to entertain yourself with. There are, however, screens throughout the pod, and they show the countryside as you zip by, giving you some sense of where you are and at least a small connection to the outside environment.

As I relax in my seat I stare a bit vacantly at the images of the rural scenery, the “Hinterlands” we call them. There are very few people living in these regions. There are farms, of course, which serve the cities, supplementing the aquaponics systems that most homes have, and like the cities, the farms are walled off against the great unknown. They have few inhabitants, mainly just robotic farm equipment. There are however, groups of people who live further out than I can see. There is little known about them except that they call themselves “The New Amish” What is known about them is that they are not a bit passive like the real Amish; they adopted the name because they appreciated the Amish relationship to technology. Although many people believe that the traditional Amish shun technology that’s not entirely true.

What the Amish do is to look at technology long and hard to determine if it will fit into their society. They look at what benefits it will have as well as what sacrifices they will need to make in order to adopt it. So too, the New Amish rely much more on hand labor, and although they do use robots to a limited degree they believe that hand craft, the act of shaping stone, wood metal and clay, also helps forge the character of the individual. They are known to be straightforward and honorable but not to be trifled with. They will trade with outsiders on rare occasion but if you cross them you are likely to end up dead. They have adopted a kind of remorseless, brutal ferocity forged during the difficult times of the Twilight Years. They simply will not accept what they consider a lack of honor, respect, and decency.

Arriving in San Francisco I am met by an autonomous Google vehicle, the ride costs me nothing, at least in crypto. My digital advocate or “DA” has cashed in credits from a ride that is owed me by someone who visited Seattle and rode in my Tesla. They may or may not have come from San Francisco, it doesn’t matter, the blockchain-based barter exchange handles those details automatically and invisibly.

Twenty minutes or so later my taxi deposits me in a seedy warehouse district. I depart my vehicle in front of a sad, run down but once proud, dirty grey building. The six story structure might be as much as a century old. Rumor has it that it was originally a garment factory, then became a department store, an office building, a business incubator and rental space for “pop-ups”. Then during the Twilight Years, kind of an indoor swap-meet. And today? Well, it’s poorly maintained “space for rent” and who knows what all it’s used for. Lots of “creatives” doing their own thing, I personally can’t even imagine.

I place my hand near a sensor close to the door. The device looks like a high tech beauty mark on an otherwise drab antique building, or perhaps a futuristic barnacle which has attached itself to the structure. At the same time I stare into a camera lens pointed at my face. The ridges on my hand and fingers are scanned as is my retina and facial features. A pleasant female voice bids me welcome and the door unlatches with a click.

My stomach tightens as I proceed down the hall. It’s unclear to my conscious mind why that is but I’ve come to realize that sometimes your body just seems to understand the situation before your mind has a chance to catch up.

I don’t know this building well, having been here only a handful of times, but still, I know the way to the room that our boss rents out for those rare occasions when we do meet in person. It’s two floors up and three doors down to the right. In years past one might have taken the elevator, but today you need to hike the stairs. It really is a pity, the old non-functional elevators are quite beautiful and have an ornate quality with lots of brass from when it was a department store perhaps in the 1940’s.

I open the door to the meeting room feeling like a kid late to class. About twenty people are sitting around the perimeter of the room in an eclectic assortment of used chairs. A few are sitting on the floor with their backs to the wall. Dusty sunshine coming from the tall factory-style windows illuminates the space. The windows have remained unwashed, perhaps for years. I note several small bullet holes that I don’t recall from my last visit, nothing you wouldn’t expect in this neighborhood.

I scan the room to see familiar and not so familiar faces. These “physical presence” meetings happen so rarely that people have come and gone in the interim. I‘m used to the cognitive dissonance of seeing these people in the flesh when I mainly know them as strictly three-dimensional avatars. They still seem mostly familiar, albeit a bit less attractive than their virtual reality counterparts. I do, however, notice several strangers, including one very strikingly beautiful young lady whom I have absolutely no reference point for. I assume they are all recent additions to the team that I don’t interact with.

The group is solemn, even a bit grim faced and quiet. Alan, our boss and a personal friend of mine, enters the room, apologizing for being tardy. He quickly starts the meeting by asking everyone to introduce themselves just to refresh our memories after working apart for so long, and as the introductions proceed around the room I become more curious about those strangers.

The first one, a man, introduces himself and it becomes clear that I was right, he works in software and I work in mechanical design engineering. The second, also male, has a similar story. “Well, that makes sense,” I think, “we probably would not typically cross paths.” The third stranger, that beautiful young lady, introduces herself as “Ann”, an electronics engineer. “Very strange”, I think, “I know an Ann as part of the team, a middle aged, female EE, a recent addition to the team, not at all memorable in appearance but a highly skilled engineer.” My curiosity piqued, I can’t resist asking, “Ann, you don’t look a bit like your avatar, why is that?” Ann looks uncomfortable and stares at the floor, replying, “Well, I don’t know, I guess it just works out better for me this way, I can concentrate on my work”. I chuckle to myself, thinking, “Wow, I really didn’t see that coming. Everyone else is enhancing their virtual appearance and here she has gone the other direction entirely. Perhaps she would get too much attention otherwise? It really has become a very strange world”.

Alan, who is typically a jovial people person, seems annoyed at me interjecting my trivial question into the meeting; he paces a bit in the middle of the room, shooting me sideways glances. Alan and I share a lot in common, we are both “old dogs”, the kind that are not supposed to be able to learn new tricks. For the most part, we have both proven that old adage wrong, constantly reinventing ourselves as technology progressed, honing our survival skills during the Twilight Years. We have shared more than one beer throughout those years, toasting our ability to adapt.

Alan is our leader, a visionary, helping the group negotiate its way through an increasingly confusing world. We are mainly a group of problem solvers, some jokingly refer to themselves as “autists” because of their lack of social skills and their huge dedication to solving the technical puzzles they are set loose on. Alan seems to have a more global vision that many of us lack, and he acts as kind of a translator, an interpreter if you will, for those whose focus tends to be somewhat tight and at times even rather constricted.

What comes next is at least somewhat anticipated. I knew that it was not going to be good, still, it's a surprise. Alan continues to pace the floor, finally blurting out, “The changes that have come these last six months, the changes that continue to accelerate, those same changes that we all here are helping to bring forward and implement are going to end in something that we can’t comprehend and likely will not be able to control. We know that artificial intelligence has been here for years now, has been writing its own code, refining itself because of our direction, to the point that no one understands how it works. And you can debate all you like as to whether it’s conscious or not, it does not matter. For me I don’t think so, I don’t think it “understands”, at least in the way we use the term, but it continues to refine itself and it appears to be accelerating. Just imagine, with these new quantum computers going online it is taking massive leaps forward. Consider this, AI spends every nanosecond of every day refining itself, testing itself, improving itself because that’s what we told it to do years ago, and at this point, short of shutting down all power everywhere, we couldn’t stop it if we knew how”.

The room is completely still. None of us were prepared for this emotional outburst, a rant from a normally good-natured, even-keeled man. We were all aware of AI but more in an abstract fashion; Alan was bringing it down to an emotional and very real understanding – in a big way.

Alan continues, a bit more subdued, “I don’t know where this will lead. Are we “summoning the demon”, like Musk said years ago? Who knows? Perhaps. Or perhaps we are at the gates of paradise. I simply have no idea. In practical terms though, this is what I can tell you today. I can’t give you anything that AI can’t do a better job at. Whether it’s project management, interfacing with clients, you name it, AI can do a better job than I can. About the only thing, I would be good for would be putting a human face on our group, schmoozing with clients, and you guys know I need to be more involved than that. And here is a warning. AI is coming for those jobs that many of you creative geniuses are so good at. Those same jobs that have kept you ahead of the curve, that we all thought would be here forever, those jobs are imperiled. That curve? Well, it's become a wave and it’s about to break over our heads and we can all pretty much expect to be tumbled in directions we can’t anticipate or understand."

“I’ve given this a great deal of thought. I will be stepping down from my role as head of the group, you simply don’t need me, and I am beyond my capacity to predict what’s coming next and how to deal with it. It’s been an honor working with you all. You are some of the most creative people I’ve ever had the pleasure to know, and you will do fine without me. You all will need to partner with AI, it will find your work and keep you going, at least for a while. As for me, I have to find something simpler and less stressful at this stage of my life.”

As Alan concludes, no one says a word. Many simply stare at the floor in stunned disbelief. No one challenges his decision, they know it’s final and there’s no reason to try. Finally, they begin to talk amongst themselves and then they surround their leader. After some very emotional goodbyes, Alan motions me over. “Let’s grab a beer and I’ll drop you at the station”.

The drive to The Viking is subdued, both of us lost in our own thoughts. Alan had driven his Porsche Speedster, a car that he kept garaged except for very rare occasions. It is an absolutely immaculate vehicle from the 1950s, a noisy old gas burner with a manual transmission and an air cooled engine. Just finding fuel for the little sports car must be a huge challenge. I remember Alan admitting that he had taken his hands off the steering wheel a few times when he first got it because he had simply forgotten how to drive a non-autonomous vehicle. But now he seemed like he was in his element, shifting gears like he was a kid back the mid-1900s.

The Viking is quiet, still, the middle of the day and just a few of the stools are occupied. We grab a booth and sit down. Alan seems relieved after having confronted a hugely difficult decision that affected us all. “What will you do?” I query. Alan replies with a smile. “Not sure, at this point, I’m pretty well set financially. I need something simple, uncomplicated, to recover from my technology overload. You know I’ve always said I would never retire, but it sounds like that might be where I’m headed. Perhaps I’ll get a sail boat and go somewhere without electricity, camp on the beach for a while, eat smoked fish and “fall off the map” as they say.”

Alan looks directly at me, “And what about you? I’m sorry to put you through this. What do you think you’ll do?” My reply is hesitant, “Well, frankly, I’m still a bit stunned. I haven’t had time to think it through. I guess I’d like to continue doing what I’m doing now. I suppose that means that I need to link up with AI like you said in the meeting. You know, I guess I’ll be OK with that as long as I’m still dealing with human clients, but if AI wants to give me projects that it wants to do, well at that point I’m out.”

Alan looks at me with a frown, “Yeah, that might just be where things are headed. I really didn’t want to say that at the meeting but I think everyone will come to that realization in their own time.”

After another beer and a lot more conversation about the future, as well as catching up on news about mutual friends and family, Alan drops me at the Hyper Loop station for the evening ride home. As he heads off in the Speedster heads turn in admiration, perhaps they are thinking, “There goes someone who has not given up on self-reliance and autonomy”. Well, I suppose that’s what I would like to think. Who knows, perhaps they just think, “Wow, that’s a beautiful car.”

As the Hyper Loop pod accelerates I lay back in my seat in a daze. In this age of vast change, I feel this day may have pushed me to my limits. Perhaps it was the beer. I wonder idly to myself if it’s time to quit drinking. On second thought perhaps I just need to drink a lot more. Of course, I know that’s not any kind of solution, but I feel that reducing this stimulation overload is crucial to my sanity. So much is happening in our world that seems like it’s out of our control. Like a grease fire, ripping through our lives reducing all of what we thought we knew to ash.

We had lost the whole concept of balance and all we seemed to know was to feed this fire with some vain hope that good would come of it or that at least we would be spared even as others were consumed by the blaze.

During the Twilight Years, the pace of change had slowed and simple survival was most people’s only focus, but because the electromagnetic pulse attack had spared large areas that were prepared for it, technology continued to advance even as many regions were reduced to a level of existence unseen since the 1800s. Amazingly, many technologies had come to fruition even during those hard times. Metallic hydrogen coupled with quantum computing had created huge advances not long ago that allowed the creation of my “digital advocate”, an AI program whose only mission was to serve and maximize my interests. I paid a substantial subscription fee to be one of the first to have this advantage. It allowed me to stay ahead of the curve, looking out for my investments, helping me gain impressive returns, finding the best deal available for any product I might be interested in, monitoring my health, even recommending restaurants that fit my tastes. But perhaps most usefully, it would constantly scour the internet for the most arcane engineering information, accessing a myriad of sources and then writing a concise, coherent report tailored to the way I think in order to optimize my understanding.

Of course, I knew the advantages the program afforded me would be short lived as its use spread; these advantages would diminish as the program began to compete with itself. The company that developed it knew this too and tried to limit its use, but inevitably it would escape to the larger community and all advantages that I enjoyed would completely evaporate.

But the larger question was the one Alan had raised about AI’s effect on all of our futures. I was not one to think of AI as “Skynet” and the idea of it becoming self-aware still seemed beyond absurd. Still, I had to admit that life is rugged, tenacious and ever present, living even in the Antarctic and in boiling vents thousands of feet under the sea. Could life find a home within inorganic silicon chips and software? It seemed unlikely that even the seemingly relentless impetus of life could be expressed that way, but who knows.

I put the question aside and order a bloody-merry mix, sans alcohol, a habit carried over from my air-flights from years past. The tangy drink arrives on the overhead delivery trolley which runs the length of the pod on tracks in the ceiling. It lowers into position next to my seat, presenting me with my beverage.

As I sip the drink I glance up at the screen displaying the passing scenery. I wonder to myself how those New Amish had managed to pick up the pieces after the EMP attack. They were not in any of the regions that were protected, it must have been a harsh experience recovering from that nightmare. But they did recover and went on to create a viable society with a focus on family, community, morality, and balance. And the technology they did adopt, it served them and not the other way around.

Mentally exhausted, I slip on my earphones, pull up some old fashioned music from the 1960s in an attempt to blot out the present. I close my eyes and reflect on Alan and his comment about finding some simplicity in his life, and what about that young woman at the meeting? Doing just the opposite of what one would expect. “Perhaps”, I think, “it’s time for me to do something radically different”. I wonder, a bit wistfully, if those people, those “New Amish”, might, just might, accept a stranger and his family into their community.