Tomorrow Is Not Just Another Day
Now that I'm 40, I can say with authority that life's greatest challenge is living in the present. And that's too bad: Each day that passes is filled with tiny precious moments that disappear unnoticed into the past because we were preoccupied or too hard at work to stop and reflect … on the décor of the 60 Minutes offices, the smell of the CBS News cafeteria, the gardenia in my secretary's hair. (The remarkableness of the unremarked is at the heart of Thornton Wilder's theatrical masterpiece, Our Town. I insist that everyone in the NYC area see the current production at the Barrow Street Theater. It will make you rethink ... your life.)
Life is beautiful, yes, and a quiet tragedy.
Yet fixating on the Past doesn't do much good. It's whiny, pathetic, really unattractive. The best way to ruin a relationship.
So I'm choosing to dwell on the Future. Hence the August 17th debut of my very special CBSNews.com webcast entitled, "The Tomorrow Show with Mo Rocca." (And yes, I know that the great Tom Snyder hosted a great program called the Tomorrow Show. He's an inspiration.)
We'll be looking at the "Future of Pets," "Traffic," "Candy" … and a whole lot of things I'm not at liberty to discuss – except to say that I've already spent a wonderful afternoon at the home of social networking maven and fan-of-future MC Hammer.
Here's a little video we did from Hammer's kitchen. (His kitchen is really clean!)
Throughout I'll be blogging here about the future and other topics political, pop cultural and personal.
I'm looking forward to getting to know you. It may happen slowly. But in time trust will build, maybe even intimacy.
In the meantime, can you help us think of a closing line for The Tomorrow Show? Something like "Don't stop thinking about The Tomorrow Show," only less needy.
I actually look like I'm 35, right?