"The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him." -- G.K. Chesterton We are all pretty good at looking ahead, at planning for our future and for dealing with old age. If you are a business person, you have honed your planning skills because we all know failing to plan is the formula for failure. Most of us plan for our family, establishing a trust, keeping photo albums and making funeral arrangements. Since childhood we are cautioned to think about our future, to get an education, to work hard and to save money. Once we finish schooling, get a job, start a family and a career we switch our attention to planning for our kids, helping to make them successful and self-sufficient, so we can enjoy our golden years, comforted by knowing we have provided a platform for their future. I wonder, how often do we stop and think about what has happened behind us? How did we manage the platform we were given? Did we even acknowledge that it was gifted? I am thinking about the more personal, community and family level gardens our parents and their parents cultivated, and the fruit we harvested. The 20th Century may well go down in the sanskrit of time as the All Time Greatest Century. Not just because of the wealth generated, but because of the explosion of human inventory, of physio and psychological advancement and the advancement of human freedom. Or not... My generation has, by any measure, enjoyed more existential privileges than any other era in human history. Since the industrial revolution, our experiences are a litany of "First Evers": Electricity, refrigeration and air conditioning, automobiles and mass transportation, air travel, instant communication and the internet, medical and scientific advances and miniaturized technology that boggles the mind. Obviously it is hard, if not impossible to imagine what "First Evers" our children and their children will see in their lifetimes. My dad lived to see man land on the Moon, so he certainly dreamed of going to Mars. But I wonder if he had any inkling of a satellite called Voyager sending back photos of Earth taken from the edge of the solar system? Closer to home, what will our followers encounter and what will they be the first ever to discover or invent? And what will they think about our lives and what, if any, we did that contributed to their lives in the second half of the twenty-first century and beyond? Will they still be living in stucco houses? Will they still be communicating by text? Will there be such a thing as Mom and Dad and natural birth? Each generation has an obligation to build a platform for the next one. And we have exceeded our own expectations. But we have also created new complications and obstacles, and the solutions will have to be found in the future. It is inherent to the human condition that we leave as many mysteries as we inherited. There is a lot of anxiety and conflict in our world about division, war and poverty. About the haves and the have-nots, and who should lead and who should follow. In every part of the world there are tribes, describing themselves as Progressives, Conservatives, Libertarians, as Populists, Nationalists, Whigs, Marxists or Globalists. Humans have a need to belong and a desire to be heard, so they naturally band together. My question is how important is our collective need to be remembered? Ask yourself, if you were to be remembered for ONE THING, what would it be? |
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April 2024
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