The List

Futurist

Per Merriam-Webster:
Futurist; noun, one who studies and predicts the future especially on 
the basis of current trends.

Take a microscope, a telescope, a mirror, a crystal ball, then buff 
them all shiny and bright.  Talk to as many really smart people as 
possible.  Follow the Money.  And bring a lever, one big enough for 
Archimedes  to  move  the  world.

Being a Futurist is an unfulfilled objective.  It is not a static 
state  but  one of continuous growth.  It is the  practice  of looking 
back(wards), reflections in the mirror, into both the distant  and 
the near past.  Looking closely, looking from a distance, and a good 
bit of intuition.  Also, in our profit-driven endeavors, watch where 
the investment money goes.

A Futurist, IMHO, is not one who reaches for worlds far away, a 
panacia or a utopian vision.  Rather, a Futurist offers the 
next first steps, whether in the field of technology or any field 
that is progressing, evolving (e.g. Science, Philosophy, Art, et al).

Futurists face a conundrum.  To be effective it is necessary to 
surround one's self with a wide variety of very smart people.  When I 
do, I realize that I am already at the edge of the future, today's 
Future.  But my very smart peers and I represent a small part of our 
larger society.  

I am reminded of the concept that 'magic is science we don't 
understand yet' ( 
https://www.jamiefosterscience.com/magic-is-science-we-don-t-understand/ 
) but instead; magic is the 'Future' that the majority of people don' 
t understand yet.  Once the real day-to-day initiatives at future's 
edge become better known the 'magic' of the future  will diminish.  

I am a Futurist in that I am a researcher at the edge.

(BONUS: If you are reading this you too are probably a Futurist.)