Why I’m Writing "The Long Tomorrow"
New to “The Long Tomorrow?”
The Long Tomorrow explores how AI, robotics, and biotech are reshaping the second half of life. I publish 2–3 thoughtful posts on this topic each week.
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My Opening Hook to You
We’re nowhere near ready for what’s coming. Not culturally, not economically, and certainly not psychologically.
Lifespans are extending—more and more with every passing year. Artificial intelligence is advancing in ways that will eliminate or radically reshape most professional roles, and robotics is not too far behind. Retirement, education, parenting, even personal identity are all on a collision course with technologies and timelines we haven’t been trained to think about. But instead of adapting, most people are clinging to systems designed for short, linear lives: school, work, retire, die. That model is crumbling.
I’m writing The Long Tomorrow because we need new thinking and frameworks. Not utopian fantasies or apocalyptic panic—but honest, viable structures for navigating the future with eyes open. If we wait for the collapse to fully arrive before we start thinking, it’ll be too late.
Here is a handy link to the most recent article in The Long Tomorrow series from last week. The next article comes out a week from today.
The Long Tomorrow - The Psychological and Neurological Chasm
The Personal Catalyst
My interest in longevity—and the societal blind spots around it—started with my dad.
He lived with me for nearly seventeen years after graduating high school, from the time I left Memphis for grad school at the University of Illinois through my early career as a junior lawyer in Chicago. I watched him age up close. At 70, he retired. At first, it was just a slower pace. But as the years went on, I saw his activity level drop, his conversations thin out, his memory falter, and his underlying meanness and anti-social traits come out more and more. By his mid-80s, things were clearly slipping. By his late 80s when he was living somewhat on his own in Palm Springs, CA, he was diagnosed with stage 4 Alzheimer’s. There were days he didn’t recognize me at all. Sometimes he would lash out—verbally and socially—never physically though. It was heartbreaking.
Then, starting in 2005, I invested in and began running a healthcare business—13 years as the owner and CEO of a medical and psychiatric services company with 150 psychiatrists, nurse practitioners and social workers treating around 17,000 patients a month in 220+ nursing homes across five states. The clinical team and I talked regularly about what we were seeing: the high rates of bare basic treatment of mental health issues in the elderly, the lack of long-term thinking in care models, and how little anyone seemed to be doing to improve the situation before people ended up in the independent living / assisted living / nursing home system. No one was building a better future for aging. Everyone was reacting to crisis—when it was already too late.
That disconnect stuck with me. And it's one of the reasons I started writing The Long Tomorrow.
The Premise of the Book
The Long Tomorrow is an exploration of what happens when life expectancy, artificial intelligence, robotics, and institutional stagnation all hit critical mass at the same time.
This isn’t just about life extension. It’s about the cultural, economic, and legal fallout of a society that hasn’t built systems for people who may live to 120, remain mentally sharp into their 100s, and find their work made obsolete at 45. It's about a workforce aging out of usefulness before it ages out of biological function. It’s about families dealing with 50-year retirements and multi-generational dependency without any of the institutional supports that might have existed a generation ago when lifespans were shorter.
The book will grow out of the 12-part article series I am currently publishing here on Substack. Those posts are designed to spark deeper conversations—about what’s broken, what’s about to break, and what might be built instead. I’m expanding that material into a 15-chapter book for release in January 2026. The writing is grounded in what’s already visible but often ignored.
Why It Matters Now
Every day, we get a little closer to a future most people aren’t preparing for. The demographics are shifting. The institutions are rusting. The assumptions are collapsing.
We’ve been conditioned to think of aging as decline and of work as identity. But what happens when that contract breaks? What happens when people can live decades beyond their first useful economic function—and know it? What happens when careers vanish faster than new ones can be invented, and when young adults realize they’ll need to reinvent themselves multiple times just to stay solvent?
What I’ve seen—both personally and professionally—is that most of our systems assume scarcity: of time, of energy, of relevance. But in a world of abundance (not the AI fantasy of “abundance” though)—whether it’s data, intelligence, or years—we don’t know how to allocate meaning, responsibility, or worth. That kind of mismatch isn’t just inconvenient. It’s dangerous.
I’m not writing The Long Tomorrow to scare people. I’m writing it because denial is no longer an option. There’s a small window where people can start adapting while they still have choices. That window won’t stay open forever.
Who It’s For
This article series and then my book are for anyone who senses the ground shifting under their feet but doesn’t yet have the vocabulary or framework to respond.
It’s for people in their 30s through 60s who have responsibilities—to themselves, to aging parents, to children—and who realize that the future they were told to plan for no longer fits the facts. It’s for working professionals wondering what happens when their credentials and careers stop carrying weight. It’s for people worried that the institutions they trusted—pensions, healthcare, education—will collapse right when they need them most.
In short, it’s for people trying to think clearly, act early, and avoid becoming collateral damage in a future they were never consulted about.
In Closing
I’m writing The Long Tomorrow to help people see clearly—before they’re forced to. This isn’t an exercise in predictions. It’s a field guide for navigating a future that’s already arriving, one blind spot at a time.
We still have time to plan better lives, better transitions, and better endings. But we’ll have to do it with intention. And we have to start now.
If you too have been thinking about what comes next—for your work, your health, your family, or your future—then this project is for you.
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