These Are The Days My Friend

They'll end. So let's enjoy them now.

After all, the time will come when they're seen as the “good old days.” It always happens, but in retrospect we don't always agree. Such simple things as electricity and indoor plumbing haven't always existed. And certainly not jet flight, computers, and instant communications.

But we look back on the past with nostalgia and remember the “good times” that are no more. I suspect, however, that we wouldn't want to live as our grandparents did. We latch on to each new gimmick and fad and wonder how our ancestors lived without them – as they wondered about the survival of those who preceded them. Perhaps there are some improvements that could be made, but things have never been so good. And the same was true in each generation before ours. At least that's the perception.

Well, I'm not sure. Sometimes I think we're going too fast. And sometimes I think we're going in the wrong direction. And sometimes both. For example, we're at a point when we can send a space craft to meet up with an asteroid and land on it. After that it's expected that the craft will sample some of he asteroid's contents and return them to earth. Amazing! At the same time, however, the conditions for many of those now living on earth are terrible. For some there's not enough to eat while others lack a safe place to sleep at night, or even to walk during the day. We're devoting too much in tax dollars to answer the theoretical questions that scientists have, even though we know that those answers, which may be of interest to future generations, will have no effect on our lives. In our liberal and idealistic frame of mind, we are more interested in our perceived obligation to our great, great, grandchildren (should the world survive) than to our own children. We may mouth our interest in them, but our real fascination is for the unknown – for the next big thing.

We've developed social media, and the devices that bring it to us, while becoming more and more antisocial, preferring to text rather than talk. And we can now get almost any sort of food at any time of year, including everything we need to plate a gourmet meal for our families. In fact why bother preparing food for them? We can get a ready-made nutritious gourmet meal that we just have to pop into the oven or microwave, and free ourselves from the tedious burden of actually cooking for those we say we love.

I don't mean to suggest that before the rocket ship people had enough to eat and a safe place to live. But even if they weren't able to accomplish it, they gave thought to using our resources for the sake of improving the lives of their brothers and sisters. Of course we're doing that now, but our goals are far more speculative than they used to be. Our focus has changed from what's now, to what's to come.

I certainly don't believe that the electronic age is all bad. I'm a hermit and I enjoy the opportunity to do all my shopping without leaving the house. But I'm an anomaly. If society is to survive and flourish, people must interact with each other. Face to face. Not on a machine. The world's problems won't be solved by people gazing into their palms.

And there's a lot to be said for cooking dinner. It's an expression of love and concern for each other, not just of necessity. There is communion of more than our bodies when bread is broken and wine drunk. (Mary Francis Kennedy Fisher) That, of course, will require that people have the raw materials necessary for such an endeavor. But we could take more steps toward that goal now if we chose to do so.

Some day, perhaps, people will look back at today, and suggest that it was the ideal time. They'll be wrong. It is, sadly, and age when we've given up on the present and are more interested in moving to the future – whatever the cost. We don't need to provide for those around us. We're too busy avoiding them, and each other, as we look for an easier time for ourselves now, and a quicker path to tomorrow. This may also have been the attitude in the past, but people didn't have the tools that would permit them to act on their wishes. Now we do. (Though in times to come our descendants will take note of our primitive devices. They'll also wonder about our aversion to GMF, which is simply accelerated evolution, a concept in which we claim to believe.)

And we're devoting our resources to tomorrow as well, without always considering how they might be used to improve conditions for those here now, and for those soon to come. Tax dollars, which might aid those suffering at present, are being used to answer the speculations of scientists who look to others to support their muses and clarify their mental conjectures. Perhaps their ideas will aid future generations, but it those future generations who will have to pay for them. We have to go into debt to do so now, leaving some current problems unsolved as we make the great leap forward.

There's an old saying, Don't just do something. Stand there. It contains a lesson that we haven't learned yet, but we're far beyond it. There's no going back, as much as it might be desirable. Our only hope is that we can stop and think about the implications of what we are doing now.




September 7, 2016