Bracing Ourselves for the Future

 

This is the year 2024.

I am a representative of an older generation, lingering on, perhaps, past my time. I am absorbed by thoughts of the legacy we are leaving behind for our children.  Perhaps we personally don’t feel responsible for all that we leave behind, but things have happened on our watch. We, the older generation, are those from whose hands has been wrested- is being wrested, the control of what the future may hold. That does not free us from responsibility. We are the ones in the witness box. Who is responsible if not ourselves? We were the ones who stood on the shoulders of those who came before. We were there to build better than them.

Who would have dreamed twenty years ago that we would be alive in the year 2024?  Twenty years ago, at the age of seventy, we went and got married. That speaks to our sense of optimism? But we remember well the past we lived through.

After the war, and our near self-destruction, the humans in Europe spent their time rubbing their collective tummies to comfort themselves in their survival. With the establishment of the E.U., they lived way beyond their means, as they still do, with the help of international institutions that were established and mainly funded by U.S. money and initiative.

We survived the rigors of Y2K. Remember that? It passed without a ripple in spite of all our trepidations. Perhaps that was so because we made such a big deal of it and we did a lot of things to make sure what was ahead would proceed into the misty future as we hoped it would. And it did. No sweat. Whew! Maybe we dodged a bullet.

So what else was on our plate? There were a few things to occupy our collective minds. We had to pick up after  financial indulgences that none of you remember anymore. A lack of regulation under a laissez-faire American president resulted in instruments that polluted our world financial system. With the collaboration of bankers and financial firms around the world, mis-labelled financial products were knowingly sold. It was an evil game of financial musical chairs where nearly every one ended up standing with garbage on their hands when the music stopped.

Government, that’s you and I, the taxpayer, ended up with the big bill. All that paper the bankers were selling as triple A became worthless when the loans started to go bad and the houses flooded on to the market at salvage prices.

Europe also piled on the gravy train. They have been piling deficit on top of deficit for years, when the paper the banks were holding went bad, the banks collapsed like houses of cards. The governments went down for the count in most countries trying to save their financial systems at the taxpayers’ expense. In Europe, they haven’t even got to first base in confronting the problems and there’s more pain to come. 

The price we all paid was, and is, a depreciation in the amount of goods our money buys.

 In Canada, we pretty well avoided all this (except depreciation in our money,) because of our chartered bank system, but we did get caught in the downdraft.

The world emerged from the horrors of World War II and the Holocaust. But we quickly followed it with the Cold War (with hot spots). We were there when our world went to the brink of nuclear destruction. We’ve survived nuclear destruction so far.

Have you noticed we’ve had about seventy-five years without a serious outbreak of war? How come? The U.S. has been the sole military power ready to go to war to prevent aggressors from having their way. And that’s what they did! The world has benefitted from a “Pax Americanus”.

Guess what? That time is over!

China is challenging America’s world hegemony. And the U.S. is turning isolationist. The last thing they want to see is American soldiers involved in a military struggle far from home. And their allies have seen the  U.S. support they counted on in the past has not been forthcoming. Russia, Iran and North Korea have been acting out with little robust action from the U.S. In the past U.S. forces would have quickly been involved in aggressive action. The world has noticed.

Well, what if I cry it wasn’t me, it wasn’t me. I was too small in the scheme of things to bear this awesome responsibility for all that. I am too small to be personally blamed. It was the other guy, who, exactly, we don’t know.

Well, what things did I do to alter the course of human events? What did you and I bring to the table? I am picayune, but still, surely I brought something to the movable feast?

My personal doings are ancient history, most witnesses having passed on. Suffice it to say I am content with the widow’s mite I offered to my fellows. I am scrabbling among the crumbs that were evidence of my passing and it seems too little. Oh, the effort and devotion I put into that ego-driven crusade.

How do you feel with what you have done with your life?

Compare the Now. The world is changing so fast I have difficulty absorbing all the benefits being showered on us by the young minds clamoring for our attention. Shall I mention Artificial Intelligence and what it promises on top of the technological innovations we have already seen? So many individuals are changing the very nature of our world. How much truth has gone forth from Jerusalem alone?!?

Far from standing on our shoulders, the young are building robot bodies of their own to stride off into the future. Soon they may be able as well to rebuild my body, wilting in the heat of time.  We can only look on in wonder. Will we live long enough to see more of them?

What of the dire challenges I see before us as I brace myself for what’s to come? Will our young awaken to the dangers of a world so full of lies that we can lose sight of the truth? Will they banish threats so they pass like bad dreams? Is there the role left for us? What do we leave that is indelible on pages of the future, pages washed and scrubbed by remorseless time every cosmic day? What do you and I leave behind as legacies for the future?

Where should our primary attention have been focused instead of on the battling with windmills, with the building of sand castles on the churning beaches of time? What should we have noticed more, focused on more?

It comes down to the things we did almost without noticing. We did just what people do without thinking too much about it. We did what we are really here for. We have the blessings of healthy children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, as a legacy. They will create our new futures. Brace yourselves, children! Brace yourselves for what your tasks will be!

I am in an ecstasy of joy and gratitude.

July 2024