“I never think of the future – it comes soon enough.” Albert Einstein
It’s funny, I woke up yesterday morning to look at the news I always read first thing. It’s fromYahoo. I don’t know exactly where it puts me in terms of savvy, computer cruising for the latest news. Well, that’s not really true. I could get the BBC or a host of other more esoteric sources, but I am always interested in stupid news. Fifty year old women in bikinis and a host of fame famished people, pawing for attention, is my daily dose of dumb.
I am all about average and this is shared without any twisted sense of superiority, believe me. If you want to find out about any living creature, you rip open their guts and that’s where their stories are told. I am interested in what is deemed to be important by the peddlers of the prurient, those for whom eyeballs mean money.
I have been living with my age longer than you, because I am older than most, simply the truth of the years. Trust me, this is shared without an ounce of self-importance or its sympathetic opposite, merely a simple admission of its actuarial veracity.
I don’t think I have ever felt so split, between this moment and the frailties of the future. I gotta tell you, I feel so privileged to be gifted the life I have had. I am no fan of karma, because I would have to have done some incredible shit in my past to be afforded this life. If there is such a thing, it has always been me, stumbling through his earthly tenure, busy looking at his feet, sidestepping embarrassment as much as possible.
There has never been a time in my history when our future has been so tenuous. Well, wouldn’t you know it? There has never been a time when my future has been so attenuated as well, a lousy coincidence.
I know most of us don’t like to think about our pending demise and while I wish that was not the case, it is. I think many of us just have a short circuit whenever the end rears its ghostly grasp. So, this is where I have bumped into myself again and again. Here I am, with around a lucky decade left in my pocket and I am living in a world, where decades from now, awful, natural consequences are forecast, based on both our denial and inaction, a lethal combination.
In a weird way, I now live in two worlds, one with an immediacy of my moment and the other, peering out at a forecast of the inevitability of our denial of what I believe is already actually here, a climate calamity.
I have pretty much been every age you have been and no, it is doesn’t make me clairvoyant, but it does make me somewhat empathic. While I can easily think about a time when I won’t be here, you guys are likely going to be around. You and I, we have two different futures. Growing up, I never imagined a future without me, but the passage of time has changed that.
Hell, I don’t know what I can do about what’s to come? Years ago, it was decided for me that I should write and share myself with you and that’s what I have been doing. Now, it just seems to be what comes to mind whenever I bump into myself at times like this.
I thought about a title for this story, before I started writing it and it now sounds far more important than what has followed. You know, if you had asked me when I was kid, if I could possibly imagine our climate choking us into a science fiction world of immeasurable suffering, I probably would have turned my back and ignored you, or run home to tell my mother about some crazy person in the neighborhood.
Somehow, I grew up and ended up in the broadcast advertising business, strutting down Madison Avenue in a Burberry raincoat, with LF sewed into the lining. Life was all about getting what I think I deserved. Actions had no consequences, beyond satisfaction in that moment.
Somewhere in there, the future spooked the air out of me. I was living a life that just didn’t feel right and I wish I could offer some brilliant explanation of why I did what I did, but I can’t and I won’t. What I can tell you is that the future became palpable and no longer some classroom concept. The rest of my life mattered, in ways I had never imagined before.
So, I began this journey of mine, committed to teetering on the high wire without a net. The simple trick was to never look down, only straight ahead. I screwed up a couple of times at the outset, because I was only a fledgling member in life’s circus. Now, I am pretty clear about my time on the wire and I see my future.
Everyday, when I look at the information we are being fed, filled with petty distractions and distortions, I know that our guts are being poisoned. So many of us have developed an appetite for this foul tasting fodder. This is all a calculated distraction, perpetrated by those who stand to gain the most from our doing the least.
The future is right now. It is not waiting for you. It needs you. Whatever you do, don’t look down.
My podcast: Mind and the Motorcycle
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Larry,
Your story this week prompted a personal thoughts: I was in college in the 60s when I interviewed my grandparents. They had personally experienced the industrial revolution and the “American Dream.” Even though their experiences were amazing, I felt at the time and ever since, that the future would be better and more fascinating for future generations — for me and my offspring. Today, like you, I donʻt feel that way anymore, Recent generations of folks on this earth have done real damage, and as you say:harming of the planet will likely continue at an alarming rate, “perpetrated by those who stand to gain the most from our doing the least.” I have lost my optimism regarding the future, and in a selfish way, like you and feel I may have had the best experiences life can offer due only to the years we have lucky enough to spend alive.
Dan
Yes, you and I are contemporaries and I think we have had a terrific run. Look what we have had the opportunity to experience. It is challenging at our age to try and find a language that can resonate with those far younger. We are leaving behind extraordinary gifts and extraordinary challenges for them. The old ways will no longer work for them. Growing up, we never imagined wearing out the welcome mat, which cannot be repaired. It must be replaced with a whole new approach, something never done before. The singular importance of personal gain has to be set aside for the greater good of many. Compassion has to become the yardstick for progress and not profit. This planet will survive, but we are in danger. We are members of a very large family and our home is the world. We have to build a roof that is large enough to offer protection for all the inhabitants of this earth. We have our future and we have been blessed. I hope our grandchildren can feel the same when they get to be our age. So happy we’re pals.