06 March of the Past and the Future

            +The future. What an interesting concept in our lives, which will always be “ahead” of us regardless of the situation. What we do, or do not do, now in the present will influence both ourselves and our surrounding environment as time ticks forward. I personally find future predictions to be very thought provoking. In the next twenty nears, public transport will unfortunately still not be by blimp, although the hydrogen infrastructure on the public level will have become a common sight. Life on Mars as envisioned by Elon Musk is a true reality. The natural colour of carrots has transitioned from orange back to its historic purple hue. Many of the predictions about life in years to come, made by people from past centuries are nonetheless creative. We don’t have a device like that, however, maybe in a lifetime beyond my own we will! Other predictions seem rather silly, or would not hold too much value in our world today. We do have some variation of what you envisioned, though frankly it’s not very useful with today’s standards. As said in French, «Pas de problème. » Not only does the future rest on the horizon, it’s continuously being rewritten.

("SpongeBob 129")

            In the first season of SpongeBob SquarePants, episode 14 is one of my personal favourites. As with many short-plotted cartoons, this particular episode features two independent storylines: I believe you call this episode “A” and episode “B.” Episode “A” is known as “SpongeBob 129,” which features Squidward accelerating into the future, then deep within the past only to resurface back in his proper time era. The area of interest is the scene during his mindboggling encounter of the future. We’re not talking about ten or 50 years, though rather a whole 2,000 years (as announced by the narrator).

            From various angles of what I infer to be the interior of the Krusty Krab, is a modest chrome calendar proclaiming the date as “March 6 4017 A.D.” Crazy. So, what does this mean? Frankly, not much of anything: a fictional storyline is not quite real life, so the “value” is given to the viewer. The “cool factor” about the date “March 6 4017 A.D.” is unveiled when we apply our simple mathematics skills and subtract 2,000 from 4,017. The answer? Why, it’s 2017! For what value it holds, this is to proclaim Squidward was locked in the freezer on this day and throughout the next two millennia. What I find interesting is the original release date for this episode: 31 December 1999. The last day of any year is very cool, especially before moving forward into the next millennium period. Does 06 March 2017 or 4017, have a large significance? Unfortunately, not that I’m aware of. Perhaps the future will tell us.

Works Cited

"SpongeBob 129." SpongeBob SquarePants, created by Stephen Hillenburg, season 1, episode 14A, Nickelodeon, 31 Dec. 1999.