Disclaimer: I write this article as a US citizen, who was fortunate enough to grow up in a healthy, two-parent household in middle-class America, with the guidance and education to make some smart choices to get where I am.
I know life isn’t fair, and we all don’t get the same lot. Some have a MUCH more difficult, if not nearly impossible, ladder to climb. Hopefully you as the reader, no matter where you are in life, can get something out of this, even if life seems unfair.
Disclaimer #2: I started writing this article in 2021. It’s now the end of 2023. The world has somehow gotten even uglier, I know. Let’s zoom out here for a minute.
We live in a truly amazing time. I mean this specific time in human history, in world history, 4.5 billion years after the earth was born. All the geopolitics, crises, viruses, war – everything that is being thrown at us right now doesn’t compare to the day-to-day trials and tribulations our ancestors had to endure just to get us to this point. And despite all the horrors going on day-to-day, most of the world lives in relative peace at any given moment.
People who don’t leave the US or the developed Western world much don’t realize how good they have it. We take for granted our freedom. We take for granted that with just a passport we can visit so many countries so easily. Just to be able to experience the world, in all its natural beauty, all the different cultures, all the different languages, in relative peace, in relative safety. Sometimes it’s nice to just stop and think about where we are for a moment. Truly, it is a miracle.
We are the few lucky generations that get to enjoy everything our ancestors looked forward to. Each prior generation worked hard, procreated, evolved, and helped create a better overall quality of life for the next generation.
Think about all the technological and societal advances that occurred to get to this sweet spot – from the steam engine to air conditioning (my personal favorite) to Wi-Fi. We have the internet but are not just yet living inside the internet. The external world is still our sandbox, and we have the technology to make it more navigable. Almost instantaneously, we call Ubers, book flights, pay each other, do research, buy things, translate language, get directions, read the news, message anyone anywhere in the world, be entertained.
We have modern, safe, cars. We live in houses that shelter us from the harsh outside elements. We can pack our weekends with fun activities and hobbies. Family time, camping, bar crawls, sporting events, music festivals, weddings, religious ceremonies, spiritual ceremonies, water sports, traveling, playing music, concerts, fishing, writing, the list goes on and on. We can somehow have so many things to do and so many options that we become depressed and choose to do none of them. We can make the choice about how we look, act, what we call ourselves. And yet we spend too much time arguing over petty things, or judging people, chasing cheap dopamine thrills.
Climate change, the destruction of the Amazon, sea level rise, a world war. Sure, those all absolutely are threats we need to critically think about. But right now, the world is relatively intact. We can see it, we can visit it, we can maybe even save it. We may discover nuclear fusion, or develop AGI, suddenly all become empaths (maybe the most unlikely), or stumble upon some other miracle that helps us advance forward into a truly utopian society.
Future generations may not ever get this chance. We could suffer a catastrophic climate event, we could suffer a collapse of society, or we could succumb to the technocratic rule of mega-corporations that suck out all the culture, spice, and spontaneity of the world, replacing it with a sanitized cultural hellscape. All I know is here and now, we are in a goldilocks period, and I’m damn well taking advantage of it.
So, while you still can, enjoy our world as it is at this moment in time. Go grab some food from a local street vendor, chat up someone random, book a flight somewhere you’ve always wanted to go, enjoy your freedom, stop caring so much about other people’s agenda. Be nice, we’re all in this together. Wake up and look around. We all built this world, together. It’s far from perfect, but it’s remarkable at the same time. And one day, it will all be different, and we’ll all be gone.