collisionwork | J.G. Ballard (1930-2009)

J.G. Ballard, from an interview conducted 10/29/82 with Andrea Juno and V. Vale for RE/SEARCH issue #8/9, published 1984:

So where will the next breakthrough come? It’s impossible to say – there may not be another one! . . .

That’s my big fear, actually. I was talking to my kids and some of their friends, all of whom are in their early 20s, and I was saying that if, as a science fiction writer, you ask me to make a prediction about the future, I would sum up my fear about the future in one word:

boring. And that’s my one fear: that everything has happened; nothing exciting or new or interesting is ever going to happen again . . . the future is just going to be a vast, conforming suburb of the soul . . . nothing new will happen, no breakouts will take place. It could happen – that’s what my fear is. I don’t know what one does about that – opens a vein or something – I mean in the sense of suicide . . .