What's Next?

A meeting was called of those who had, as far as any could recall, been regarded as the best brains on the planet.  All those great thinkers, or, at least, their descendants, gathered together in one giant meeting room to try and figure out what was left.
    Every idea that had ever been imagined had been thought and attempted, and not just attempted, but pursued doggedly to the point of exhaustion, just to make absolutely certain that the idea wasn't just a fanciful notion, but, those ideas that hadn't been made reality people had to - after decades of trying - finally give in and admit that they were merely flights of fancy.
    So where did that leave us?  Seventy two years ago the last new idea had been realised, it was a teleportation device, but it was limited to transport matter on this planet and this planet alone, only via a single pod-to-pod transference, and, to teleport oneself, was one of the most singularly painful experiences any human could wish to put themselves through.  Furthermore, the human at the other end, whilst retaining all physical attributes of the initial self, lacked the memory - or "soul" if you will - of their pre-teleportation counterpart.  Whilst matter could easily be zapped to and fro, living matter never retained its neurological qualities, and the scientist reponsible for the machine was taken to court for having essentially murdered the souls of a number of his peers.
    But that was it, that was the last invention, that was the last idea, and people ummed and ahhed, racked their brains, incapable of coming up with something that hadn't been done before.
    People turned to speculative fiction, hoping that creative imaginations might feature some long forgotten concept that could propel the human race forwards into its next glorious era.  But, no, most speculative fiction had already informed the progress of science - as much so as the reverse was true - and eventually the two had cancelled one another out.
    We had hover cars, jet-packs, cloning, life-like virutal reality video games, all types of sex toys, space travel (but no means of sustaining human life out into the far reaches of the universe), new energy sources that had allowed us to keep our world powered once the oil had run out, cures for previously incurable diseases, plastic surgery so good you couldn't tell the difference, nano-technology, prosthetic limbs controlled by the brain, everything.
    All we were left with was depression, a sense of utter hopelessness.  Why had we done all this?  That's what people kept asking, and it was a futile question, because nobody could answer it.
    People argued that life was not a puzzle that had to be solved, it was merely a coincidence, just as we were the chance creation of circumstance so too were our creations; inevitable off-shoots of our own being.  Though these people were surprised that we had managed to beat the extinction of our species and find ourselves in a creative cul-de-sac first, they had - optimistically - hoped that either nuclear war or the death of our sun would have occured first.
    Some said that the eradication of our species was probably a good idea, that perhaps the only way to move forwards would be to start over.  People argued that the planet Earth was not some etch-a-sketch that could be shook and re-doodled upon, that the remnants of all human progress would still scar the surface no matter what and it'd be a deliberately idiotic measure without even taking into consideration all that genocide.
    Others were more patient, believing that inspiration would eventually come, that there is - at least - one great idea yet to be had and this time of creative stagnancy was precisely the right gestation period for such a thought.  Whilst less patient people turned to religions of various shades, from the merely worshipful to suicide cults.
    But it wasn't the awkward and clumsy segregation of a soceity bereft of ideas that rankled the most, it was the lack of entertainment, people had become dulled by the derth of new literature and music and film and games, everything just seemed so samey, so 'done'.  There was no way to surprise anyone anymore.
    People had tried raising their children to be as ignorant as possible, but popular culture was so vast, so prominent - much like the impact of the human race itself - that it was impossible to avoid, and closeting someone from it only made their desire to know all the stronger, their hunger greater and their come-down, once they had filled up and got bored, all the harder.
    For seventy two years people had kicked their heels, shuffled around, waiting for something new and there was nothing.  The malaise had convinced people that their jobs were pointless, and, indeed, many of them were.  This is a planet that had no place for advertisers, marketing executives, thinktanks, policy departments and such like.  Nor, as things wore on, was there a place for professional footballers, actors, musicians, writers, comedians, chefs, fashion designers and their kind.
    With nothing but boredom people began to pull at the threads of the ideas that had formed the basis of our society.  Money lost all value surprisingly quickly, people were more willing to exchange food or skills, even without keeping a record of what was 'owed' them.  As long as you were nice people were eager to help.
    But not everyone was nice, people rushed to assume control, seeing an Earth left unchained and ripe for the swiping.  But there was such a sense of detachment that threatening to take away someone's life no longer had the same impact that it once did, and imprisoning somebody offered little threat, with the prisons that had been created quickly forming a sense of community just as charming as that outside the prison walls.  These new wannabe dictators found themselves floundering like a fish plucked from the sea.
    Because freedom was the next concept to blur, as everyone accepted that nobody had chosen to be born, nobody had chosen what form their life took, how they looked, what ailments afflicted them, and at the core of most people was a desire to be accepted, to get along with others, to be good.  People had realised that no matter where they found themselves after their birth they had immediately become a prisoner, embroiled in some system that they had had no part of forming and could do very little to rattle the walls of their cage.  Most people had just accepted things for how they were and tried to do their best within the confines of that.
    Greed had to be eradicated, and this was easy now that everyone knew there was nowhere else for the human race to go from here, no whispered secret that only those with everything could aspire to achieve.  Instead, the only secret that the powerful had had previously was the knowledge of their own flimsy hold on the billions beneath them.  If anything, ideas and innovation had to keep occuring for the population at large to be distracted, because without the latest gadget or gizmo people would get restless.  Ultimately, the powerful had tried to stagger human progress as much as possible once they saw things drying up.
    They had hoped that maybe people had faith in them, but faith - they realised - is a by-product of fear.
    So, after seventy two years perhaps the world was shook like an etch-a-sketch, but it was not totally erased.  Instead, like a centrifuge, that which was necessary had clung on, shown its real importance, all the distractions that had dazzled the human race drifted ignominiously into obsolesence.  Leaving a simple, almost unconscious, structure, one with a stronger core than the flimsy have/want culture that had sunk its claws in over centuries of misguided progress.  These were not naive times, they were truly enlightened, and now devoid of the burden of having to wonder "What's the meaning of life?" people were finally free to truly enjoy it.