Day: March 29, 2018

My Daddy once told me that unless a man had something useful to say, he should keep his mouth shut.  As most of you realize if you know me, or have read my writing it’s obvious that I should keep my mouth shut most of the time.  I just can’t help it though, useful or not I have to say what I think.

What I am opening my mouth (or keyboard literally) to talk about today is hope.  That’s right, hope.  I have to have it.  It has to be there, like a piece of driftwood in the vast ocean when you are drowning.  Something to grab hold of and stay afloat.  My hope is for the future.  The future in which I will be missing, but my children and grandchildren and whatever descendants that I may be blessed with (who will never know I existed,) will know.

Right now, it kind of looks bleak, and that is why I have to have hope.  I don’t think there is any way that the members of my generation, the baby boomers, can fix the mess that we are in now.  It’s not just one mess, but MANY different messes going on simultaneously which make things so complex.

There are the changing demographics of the entire world.  People of different races and cultures are traveling far and wide in this day and age and settling in places their ancestors would never have imagined.  As they do this, they become familiar with each other and one thing leads to another and you have relationships being built between these members of different races and cultures.  Some still try to stick with their own cultures, but inevitably I believe will fail.  The children of the future will all probably look like Tiger Woods and Mariah Carey.  I think at some point there won’t be any black, yellow, red and white anymore.  There will be one color and one international culture at some point.  I don’t know how far in the future that this may occur, and I don’t know if mankind can keep from destroying each other first with nuclear weapons but if they can then that’s one thing I think will happen.  It will be a huge challenge for our descendants who are at the “transitional” stage.  (Or maybe that’s where we ARE now?) It could well be that the future inhabitants of this planet will “ease” into this situation so gradually that no one will ever know it’s happening until it’s upon them.  I don’t think it will be a bad thing either.  One of things that continually breeds discontent, distrust and war is the difference between people’s race and culture.  If there IS not difference then they will have to find something else to fight about.  Maybe they won’t be able to.

There is the quickly changing face of technology.  I would have NEVER in my wildest dreams as a child imagined the world as it is today.  There have been so many advances in the last 50 years that it makes the 1950’s seem like the Stone Ages.  What we take for granted every day now, would have seemed like a trick of magic back then.  Computers will continue to advance and now that robotics IS actually taking off like Isaac Asimov thought it would, our descendants can look forward to a world where the physical part of living will become easier and easier.

There will be issues that come up, ethical issues, which will challenge the very core of the morals of our society.  What about a computer program that can store the “essence” of a person on a  program, and come up with a “virtual” person who is exactly like the person who is dying.  Anyone ever seen the movie “Freejack” with old Mick Jagger?  That’s science fiction still, BUT so was Jules Verne back in the late 19^th century.  It may not be that a person’s “essence” can be stored on a computer and then put back into another person’s body.  I am not sure it will ever get to that point.  BUT to create a “virtual” person with the knowledge and character of a real live person is but a few steps away from becoming a reality.  You can “store” Grandma or Grandpa on the handy dandy virtual person program, and pull them up to talk to any time you want.  How would you like that?  Kind of a spooky thought isn’t it?  Yet, right now people who play the high tech computer games that generate “characters” to play through (the avatar type games) are already interacting in a very close knit way with these “quasi-people.”  You can give them character traits, physical characteristics, and other things which make them “almost” seem human.  It’s only a few steps away until you can do the same thing with your dear Uncle Bob, believe me.   Soulless, yes.  Interaction there will be.   There could also be a use for this type of program to reduce overpopulation, in that people who are not allowed, or don’t want to have a “real” live child, can have a virtual child which they can “raise” from a baby all the way up through adulthood.  The cost would be quite a bit cheaper to raise this type of “child” too.

Medically speaking, the people who can make it 20 or 30 more years are likely to be able to live practically as long as they want.  With the research and discoveries in genetics that are now taking place, it won’t be long until the genes that cause “aging” as we know it, will be discovered and neutralized.  People who are well off enough financially will be able to benefit from this expensive technology and beat “the system” Dick Cheney may actually still be here in the year 2100!  Hmmm…?

I think that many diseases which afflict people such as cancer, heart disease, and all the big killers will be beaten.  People will have to be run over by a Fire Truck in order to die.  That’s about the only thing which will do it.  However, I am sure there will be a lot of volunteers to be “uploaded” into the computer program which I mentioned in the previous paragraph.  After all, who REALLY wants to live forever?  And you probably will still have the old aches and pains that won’t go away.  (Maybe not, they may have something for that too)  Besides, you might be able to do things on that computer program you could NEVER do in real life, like fight dragons, or fly.  That would be a hoot, right?

I wonder if people will still be able to go out and have a juicy steak or a lobster, or if everyone will have to eat those little pills like the one that Willy Wonka invented that turned Violet, well…purple I guess.  Hopefully, he will have perfected them by then and we won’t have to go somewhere and have the juice squeeze out of us.

I kind of wonder too if space travel will advance to the point where we will be actually sending people out on missions to other galaxies.  Will the episodes of Star Trek, The Next Generation be a reality or a near reality at least?  If we can tear enough money away from the government’s efforts at exterminating people in other countries, we may be able to give some of it back to the space program and find out.  ( Aw shoot, I don’t wanna’ hit a nerve about that)

 

 

One of my favorite movies of all times is “Forrest Gump”   Ok, I know…I know it’s hokey, and clichéd but it’s still one of my favorites!

One of the things that Forrest does, that I find myself wanting to do more and more often of late, is to just take off and run, and run, and keep running.  If I COULD run, (everyone who knows me personally knows what a ludicrous idea that is) I would do it just like Forrest did, going from coast to coast and just looking at the sights and thinking.   He was thinking mostly about Jenny, which he certainly did a LOT in the movie.  As for me personally, I am to the point where I just want to break out and RUN AWAY now, as fast as I can from things!  It just seems like everything seems to pile up at one time, and as it keeps piling I feel like if I don’t get out of the way I am going to get crushed.

But, I think we all get that way at times.  When “life” things overcome us, and we start to mull over our problems endlessly, thinking that there is NO solution out there for the things that are weighing us down.  I guess I forget, as we all do, that everyone has their limit, their point up to where they can take things, and once it gets past that point you just want to RUN!

Forrest just felt like going for a little run, and he did it for two years.  At this point, it might take me more time than that to figure out where I went wrong in life and how to straighten things out.  (If that’s possible) At my age, there’s not a whole lot of “straightening out” time left in which to unspoil the pot.

Some people will say that prayer works.  I have been praying every night and so far God has either not chose to answer me, or the answer ain’t coming yet.  Could be I have got to get through this “phase” in my life by myself.   It’s a tough one though.  I guess that growing up is never easy though.

Yes, that’s right, I said growing up.  No matter what age you are, you still are not too old to “grow up” a little.  Admitting you have been wrong about some things is a good start.  A lot of people could benefit from that, and then apologizing for what they have done wrong.  Apologizing really seems to be a sticking point for some people, especially politicians!  I personally have had a problem with it sometimes.  But not now.  I am going around and telling people who I don’t even know how sorry I am!

First I guess I really just need to analyze what it is I want.  I think we all need to do that.  Maybe not even what we WANT but what we actually NEED.  Most of the time those are two WILDLY diverse things.  I want to have enough money to pay my bills, and give my wife some security, enough time to enjoy my children and grandchildren, and enough wisdom to understand that almost every other human being on earth wants the same things.  Perhaps if I look around at what’s going on most other places on this little globe, I will realize that I don’t have it too awful bad.

Well, then I am going back to the bedroom now and see if I can find my Tennis shoes.  I don’t know if I can run, but if it’s warm enough outside I think I might just take a little walk.  Run Forrest Run!