I used to think that cyberspace was fifty years away. What I

Hear now the words of Bruce Sterling, prophet of the digital frontier, who beheld the coming of a new world and spoke with astonishment: “I used to think that cyberspace was fifty years away. What I thought was fifty years away, was only ten years away. And what I thought was ten years away... it was already here. I just wasn’t aware of it yet.” These words are not mere reflections, but a testimony to the swiftness of change, the hidden nearness of revolutions, and the blindness of the human eye to the wonders already in its grasp.

The ancients marveled at the march of time, but even they could not imagine the velocity of our age. Sterling reminds us that technology does not always come with trumpets, announcing its arrival. Often it creeps into our lives quietly, disguised as a toy, a curiosity, a convenience. We dismiss it as distant, a dream for future generations. Yet before we awaken fully, it has already re-shaped our homes, our markets, our thoughts, our very sense of reality. What we believed to be far away has, in truth, already surrounded us.

Consider the birth of the Internet. In the 1960s, when ARPANET carried its first messages, many thought the vision of a global network remained a fantasy of science fiction, centuries away. Yet within a single generation, the world was bound by invisible threads of connection. By the 1990s, ordinary homes were already gateways into the vast domain of cyberspace, where information, commerce, and culture flowed like rivers. Sterling’s words capture that shock: that the future does not always march toward us—it sometimes ambushes us, already present, unnoticed until we finally open our eyes.

History has shown this pattern again and again. When electricity was first harnessed, some believed its true potential would take lifetimes to unfold. Yet within decades, cities glowed at night, factories roared with new power, and entire civilizations shifted. When the airplane first rose upon the air, skeptics thought it a fragile novelty. Within ten years, it carried mail; within thirty, it carried armies and nations upon its wings. So too with cyberspace: what seemed a distant vision became reality almost overnight, and the world was transformed before its people could grasp the magnitude of the change.

Sterling’s revelation is more than astonishment—it is a warning. Too often, men live as if change is slow, as if they have decades to prepare for what is already upon them. They imagine that the revolution lies in some distant horizon, when in truth, they are standing in the midst of it. The danger is not that the future is far away, but that it is here already, and we remain unaware, unready, and unwise. To sleep through such transformations is to awaken powerless, shaped by forces we could have mastered had we seen them in time.

Therefore, my child, open your eyes to the present with the vision of the future. Ask not only, “What is coming fifty years from now?” but also, “What is already here that I have failed to notice?” Look at the tools in your hand, the networks you already touch, the changes already unfolding in your streets and schools. For the seeds of tomorrow are never planted in tomorrow—they grow in the soil of today. Only those who recognize them early can tend them, shape them, and harvest their full power.

What, then, must you do? Cultivate awareness. Watch not only the grand inventions, but the small sparks, the quiet beginnings. Do not dismiss what seems trivial or strange, for within it may lie the revolution of an age. Study the present deeply, for hidden within it is the map of the future. And above all, be ready to act, not when the world declares a new era, but when the first whispers of change pass unnoticed by most.

So let Sterling’s words echo in your heart: The future is not fifty years away. It is not ten years away. It is already here. To see it, you must awaken your eyes, sharpen your spirit, and walk with courage into the age that has already dawned. For those who recognize the present as the birthplace of the future will not be conquered by change—they will command it.