Foreword
My life has been a miracle, at least to me.
Now in my 70s, I, and so many others before me, am surprised I reached this milestone, [millstone?], so quickly.
Seems like yesterday... I got the Christmas present of my, then, four-year old dreams, a cart full of grapes. I'm almost afraid to look in my cart this year!
Life, mine and yours, is a 'do it yourself' exercise and, if you're lucky, as I have been, it's an enjoyable time of life...so far!
I'd rather be my age than any other age. I don't want to be five, or twenty-five, or fifty-five for that matter. Memory is life. I recall experiences, have a point of view, express opinions and share experiences with others.
What is the meaning of life? My life? What is a good life? Someday my children, their children, or their children's children will, hopefully, answer these questions for themselves.
The Greeks of old thought about these questions and, believe it or not, Stoicism enjoys a revival today.
When I think about the future, I think first in terms of today, after that, next week, next year, maybe the next five years, less often, ten years or more.
I have a connection to my maternal grandfather, born in 1880, my maternal grandmother, born in 1894, my father, born in 1913, and my mother, born in 1916. They lived their lives in times of hope and change, I don't recall any existential angst. People lived, people died ... life.
I've seen changes in transportation, communication, medical science, and in every other field of man's endeavour. I expect many more changes to come, most of which I will not experience in my lifetime. Post-ice-age man is, say, seven-hundred generations old: modern man maybe fifty generations. Hard as I try, I have difficulty visioning the future beyond the next one hundred years,[autonomous transportation, legalized pot, organ transplants, robotics, the decline of the American Empire, the rise of Asia?]. What about the next thousand or ten thousand years, [species extinction, including mankind?].
What will the future hold for my family, my children, their husbands, wives, and companions, and especially, my grandchildren? What changes will they experience? What problems and challenges will they face? I think about these things and I'm hopeful about the future. Life will be interesting and challenging. I believe that the human life span makes a 'good life' possible. Could our psyche handle a thousand year life span?
One day, you and I, will be a dark spot in a layer on the side of a cliff, adjacent to Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, and countless others, such as movie stars, ['Hello Mick, Elvis, John, Paul, Ringo, George']. Who are these other 'many-coloured spots' the singers, musicians, entertainers, politicians, billionaries, trillionaires, sports heroes, steel-workers, coal miners, farmers, peasants, servants, soldiers, rickshaw drivers, the lame, blind, sick, handicapped. Oh!..what's this orange spec? Hello Donald Trump', no deals here, it's over!
<<<<>>>>
