A Message From Our Editor – July 2022
Written by Penina Taylor
Like most people, I wear many hats – I am the editor in chief of UNORTHOBOXED, but I am also a coach, speaker and an author. It’s in this last role that I sometimes find myself the most challenged. Right now I’m working on a new book. It’s in a genre that I’ve never tried before – Science Fiction. The story definitely has some religious and messianic undertones, as it’s apocalyptic, but it’s forcing me to think about things I’ve rarely and only momentarily pondered.
The book takes place about 200 years in the future. And as I sit and try to imagine what life would be like 200 years from now – not only technologically, but also as a society, I’m just having a hard time. I mean, I know what I would like the world to look like, I know how I would like to see people treat each other. I know how I would like our legal systems to function. But I would guess that the world today doesn’t look like what people had imagined in times before. Not only 200 years ago – no one in 1822 could have imagined what we now consider to be common – but even 60 years ago. I am sure that had they been challenged to sit down and imagine the world 60 years into the future, our grandparents would have imagined a world where racism and anti-semitism were all but eradicated, where we had found the cure for cancer, where women were equally respected. A world where people treated each other with more compassion and consideration. A world where if not totally eradicated, we had at least made significant progress towards the elimination of starvation, poverty and even unwanted pregnancies. Ok, at least that’s probably what I would have imagined then. Because that’s what I would imagine now.
I have to admit that the exercise usually leaves me sad. For many years during my young adulthood I saw signs that the human race was evolving, that we were becoming more enlightened, if you will. That it was becoming less and less acceptable to express hatred towards others – at least in public, and buzzwords like mindfulness, inclusivity and even compassion abounded. But then at some point it’s almost like someone hit the reset button and all of a sudden not only had we regressed, but we’ve literally gone off-kilter. As a human race, we’re failing, and unless something changes soon, I fear that we are headed for that apocalypse so many of those inclined to prose, poetry and religion have imagined and even foretold.
So what’s the answer? Well, it’s certainly not something I claim to have, but I know that continuing on our current course isn’t it. So for now I’ll just have to settle for doing whatever I can to make the world a better place by continuing to show love and respect to those who are different from me or with whom I disagree, giving a voice to the silenced and a hand to the fallen and trying to make a difference one person at a time. I hope you’ll join me.
