Thursday, April 05, 2007
What will it be like?
When I was living in France, a 16 year-old kid came up to me one night at a party and got in my face. He hated "les Etats-Unis", and he insisted that the only good thing coming out of the United States was some band that he liked. I think it was "The Pixies."
After calming him down a bit by not responding, I plumbed his anger a little bit more and let him get off of his chest all his hatred for the kid at the top of the mountain. At some point, he managed to slip in an idea that I have more or less had stuck in my head for 12 years. It was simple.
"Nothing lasts for ever", and chances are better than average that the U.S. will get what he considered its "comeupance" in my lifetime.
So 12 years has passed, the republic has gotten 12 years older, and my remaining life expectacny has decreased by maybe 10 or 10.5 years. So his comment would probably not be as true today, but at the time the US constitution had been in place for 204 years, and I could reasonable expect to live another 60.
Now I sit here wondering, what will the end look like? What can I do to prepare. Will it look like the last days in Austria before the Anschuss? Will it look like Zimbabwe today, or the decline of the Roman Empire? Will it be of natural causes like disease or famine, internal causes, environmental collapse? So many ideas floating around and all they do is get me scared. "Collapse" by Jared Diamon. I was in the Chicago airport and fingered a copy of Gibbon's, "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire."
But mostly I wonder what can I do to prepare? Should I make sure I have 50 acres and a mule to grow my own food? Will gold bullion buy me food, shelter, protection? Will guns be handy, or will they be like lightning rods?
Is my best bet to hone physical skills, such as carpentry, basket weaving, farming? Or is letting go of the need for possessions, comfort and wealth a better avenue for providing an emotional shield? People can live through a lot. Genocide killed a million Rwandans, but people still live in Rwanda. People still have children in war torn countries, and I imagine they still laugh, cry, and do all those things that humans do.
Is the worst thing the fear? The fear of what environmental disaster will look like? The fear of what WW3 could be? The concern for what a life would be like without institutional freedom. Would there still be private freedom? Freedom inside my brain? Inside my heart?
I really want to let all these thoughts go. They don't make me happy. They don't prepare me. They don't really help me. But they interest me.
Could I stop feeling compelled to read international news, or follow national politics? Could I live in the moment like a child, and yet still do a competent job of being an adult? What does being a competent adult require? Any ideas here? Are we supposed to stay in jobs we don't love to earn more money than we really need? If I earn less than I'm capable of, have I wasted talent? If I'm less happy than I could be, have I wasted time?
Who is suppoesed to teach me how to live? ¶ 9:35 PM
After calming him down a bit by not responding, I plumbed his anger a little bit more and let him get off of his chest all his hatred for the kid at the top of the mountain. At some point, he managed to slip in an idea that I have more or less had stuck in my head for 12 years. It was simple.
"Nothing lasts for ever", and chances are better than average that the U.S. will get what he considered its "comeupance" in my lifetime.
So 12 years has passed, the republic has gotten 12 years older, and my remaining life expectacny has decreased by maybe 10 or 10.5 years. So his comment would probably not be as true today, but at the time the US constitution had been in place for 204 years, and I could reasonable expect to live another 60.
Now I sit here wondering, what will the end look like? What can I do to prepare. Will it look like the last days in Austria before the Anschuss? Will it look like Zimbabwe today, or the decline of the Roman Empire? Will it be of natural causes like disease or famine, internal causes, environmental collapse? So many ideas floating around and all they do is get me scared. "Collapse" by Jared Diamon. I was in the Chicago airport and fingered a copy of Gibbon's, "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire."
But mostly I wonder what can I do to prepare? Should I make sure I have 50 acres and a mule to grow my own food? Will gold bullion buy me food, shelter, protection? Will guns be handy, or will they be like lightning rods?
Is my best bet to hone physical skills, such as carpentry, basket weaving, farming? Or is letting go of the need for possessions, comfort and wealth a better avenue for providing an emotional shield? People can live through a lot. Genocide killed a million Rwandans, but people still live in Rwanda. People still have children in war torn countries, and I imagine they still laugh, cry, and do all those things that humans do.
Is the worst thing the fear? The fear of what environmental disaster will look like? The fear of what WW3 could be? The concern for what a life would be like without institutional freedom. Would there still be private freedom? Freedom inside my brain? Inside my heart?
I really want to let all these thoughts go. They don't make me happy. They don't prepare me. They don't really help me. But they interest me.
Could I stop feeling compelled to read international news, or follow national politics? Could I live in the moment like a child, and yet still do a competent job of being an adult? What does being a competent adult require? Any ideas here? Are we supposed to stay in jobs we don't love to earn more money than we really need? If I earn less than I'm capable of, have I wasted talent? If I'm less happy than I could be, have I wasted time?
Who is suppoesed to teach me how to live? ¶ 9:35 PM
