Hello Readers in the Distant Future, again...
I'm back. I was thinking about you today, and
wondering about your intelligence--is it "artificial", or "natural"? Mostly again, I'm wondering how it is we have evolved, and what, as you read this, we are like: Do we focus only on
efficiency, and production outcomes, or do we spend some of our time wondering interesting things? Do we
have imagination, and creativity? Do we toy with questions when
there may not be one answer, but shades of speculation and opinion?
I
wish I could have the answers to these questions--because in some
sense, the answers would provide clues about how to live today.
In our future, is it all about the moment that is, or do we seek some sort of greater overarching truth, or purpose to existing? We have a mix of approaches around here, now. But regardless of which attitude a person takes in life, it is this questioning, this
seeking, that distinguishes the human race from "lesser" species. People
are understood to have the ability to reason in their decision making,
through the use of logic to map their thinking. Economists may say that people do not act rationally, but that is a different
discussion. Reason and rationality are not interchangeable.
Merged with that questioning is the fact that we raise our children
to the extreme--we do not toss them from their nests (birds) or spawn
and swim (fish)--our babies are born completely incapable of doing much
of anything, and must be cared for by their parents until they are
presumed capable of using their innate ability to reason. (Our babies have been known to rely upon their mothers until they are in their 50's.) In our prolonged raising of our kids, we have a lot of time to think about what we
want them to come away with, and in this context many parents try to think about and distill and make manifest the very essence of some theory of "upbringing". And I read
something recently along these lines, which made me happy and sad--and made me think of
you, Future Me.
The article had been sparked by a conversation the
writer had had, in which was discussed what the group anticipated would be the
wisdom that they, in their ripe old ages, would wish could
actually have been passed down to their children, and been accepted. The writer
outlining some of his response to the question is one I consider to be
an absolute power-thinker. He possesses a stellar intellect and a
curiosity the magnitude of which cannot be adjectivized (by the time you
are reading this that may actually be a word. Here and now, I just
made it up.) He is burst open to questions and seeks answers, on a
massive scale. And he is an extremely driven person, and the drive is: question. go past the common boundaries.
As one of the three things he discussed, he stated, (and I paraphrase), that though the young may believe
that life is not valuable without preferred features such as geographic
location, life partner, or career, he would like his children to know
that they will in fact adapt to situations poorer than they had hoped
for, and without most of what the now-young person treasures.
I respect him so...ah the pain! This
perspective is very upsetting. I often find him not just right, but profoundly and deeply right--, and in this case, I either disagree, or I want to disagree. I haven't decided which, yet. Any response to this question is completely subjective, and there is no one right
answer--but still, it was crushing to me: the
surprising amount of acceptance of, and resignation to the sometimes less than satisfactory outcomes of important individual decisions--the ones that each of us make in our lifetimes. And that he would advocate the transmission of an understanding that, even when it is obvious that a decision is no longer the best choice, a person can and will adapt to the situation, and be OK, and one need not seek change, because good enough is good enough... . ugh. I may be wrong but I read this as his wanting his children to learn to accept the choices that they at one point made, for all of their time, and learn to live with OK and be OK with it.
I hope I misunderstood.
Because I think this is fine for some people to say, but not him. He and his questions simply breathe potential, and so why does he admit stuntedness into his perspective, as natural, or acceptable, or fine. Of course we can adapt. But should
we, really? Is it a more noble or cleaner course of a life lived? Is it better somehow, easier or smoother, and then if he thinks yes to any of these, how does that work--perhaps less external turmoil, but what happens to a person inside? Accepting OK rather than striving for better than that...and why, again? I suppose his answer is that what happens to a person inside is that they adapt. I do not like this answer.
(This is almost un-American!, I say, half in jest. But, it is rather German, in my experience. We'll save that--another day, another missive from me.)
Because he is writing, in his article, about ideas that he
considers both wise and of such import that he wishes it were possible that his children actually learn them, I have to conclude that this belief is a product
of his reasoning, and not just a flash of momentary defeat. In fact, he does not
see it as defeat. He sees it as a fact. Just: that. And again: oh no! (Of three points he made, I should say, only one was
upsetting--and another one contradicted it, which causes in me a slim
glimmer of relaxed muscles: that his argument was rather more sophistry than
not). In thinking about it, Future Beings, Future Me, the post was
pretty much a poem. It was beautiful, painful, and answered fewer
questions than it raised--at least in me.
But... what does it mean for us? In the end, did we adapt?...and why did we adapt, when there were options, and adaptation was not really a
matter of environmental pressure?... In that market, in our long lives, did we stop taking each choice and deciding along the way if it was working or
not, and then acting on the considered answer? Did we eventually accept status quo? How do you all live; what is going on?! Do you even experience dissatisfaction, and if so, is it considered OK?!?
These are questions with no answer right now. Was he on the right track, as was so often the case? Oh. This is what I wish I knew about our future.
But he asked that question later, in a different article altogether.
