They say that in time everyone dies. I don’t actually know if that’s true yet, as nearly half of the population of humans who have ever lived are currently alive right now. It may just be that only 20-30% of humans are actually immortal, and nearly all of them have been born somewhat recently. Those not born recently were just as likely killed by disease, war, or a relative looking for an inheritance.
Assuming, though, that I am not in the immortal category, I have begun to prepare myself for the eventuality of my passing in much the same way other people have done before me for thousands of years — by staring blankly at my life wondering how I have gotten this old without noticing.
Now let me qualify that I completely understand that “30″ is not that aged — that is, not to SUPER old people over 60 (No, Mom and Dad, no one comes to mind.). But for those who have no memory of Disneyland before Slash Mountain, the age of 30 is ancient. Just consider how the world has changed in 30 years: St. Helens got a haircut; the Soviet Union shattered in into a dozen republics; Germany reunited under a free flag; the O-zone hole caused panic and then silently disappeared; Desert Storm erupted over Iraq, later resolving in Iraqi Freedom; bulky IBMs evolved into palmtops; high-volume cell service outdated the virtue of patience; Al Gore invented the Internet; we read one president’s lips and debated the meaning of “is” with another; Big Idea, Pixar, and Weta Digital revolutionized the animation industry; The Cosby Show redefined the American view of the black family; and the National Debt increased from $829 billion to $12.9 trillion.
You could say that the world has gotten better, but I prefer to think that it is much, much, much worse than before. Does this make me a pessimist? I think not; rather I prefer to think that I am an optimist. You see, if you think the world is so much better, look at how little room for improvement you are willing to give it. I, on the other hand, prefer to think that the world has a great deal of room to improve, thereby making me much more optimistic than you are regarding our inexorably short remaining future.
Because of humanity’s unrelenting pace toward redefining itself into yet another purely barbaric age where dictators… well… dictate, I have had to reconsider the types of skills I should teach my children. Sorrowfully (insert teardrops here), the liberal arts will be less befitting a man of the 21st century than they are a man of the 20th. I am reminded of a completely fictitious quote attributed to John Adams which I will proceed to butcher: “I learn the political of war so that my son may have the right to learn math and philosophy; and he will learn those so that his son may have the right to learn art and poetry.” I don’t know why that quote came to mind, but I really liked it, and it seemed like a great place to put it.
Basically I have focused my boys training and education into two basic subjects: things you need to know when the barbarians take over, and things you need to know if a high-altitude electromagnetic pulse destroys our electrical grid for the next ten years because it’s impossible to pay anyone to rebuild it without electric bank accounts which obviously will no longer be functioning. I figured that between these two categories, I should have everything covered — everything from how to hunt for food to how to hunt for women… and… um… those are really the only two things I’ve got yet. It’s a work in progress.
That’s about all I can handle at the moment. I’ll be sure to update more later.
