When I was a boy I would ask my mother
To tell me stories of the olden days
And listen rapt to hear about her childhood
And her adult life before I was born.
She was born at the end of the Great War
When the world was already whirling in modern times.
My grandmother was born in the previous century
Ancient history in the mists of time I thought then.
Now I think our measure of time compares to personal
existence
Going back some number of times more than your own duration
And as I get older the events of the past two centuries seem
closer
Like the recent past just once or twice removed from my
life.
The industrial revolution accelerated the long sweep of time
by any measure
Inventions of machines to transport us transforming the
landscape
Inventions of weapons to destroy us bringing terror like a
nightmare
Inventions of technology creating a future out of science
fiction.
I see now what has happened over three of my lifetimes
Just yesterday canals were dug for barges connecting rivers
Replaced by railroad lines interlaced in a better network
Outmoded a few decades later by the interstate highway
system.
Today I can telecommute on the information super highway
And as I bicycle along re-purposed canal paths and former railroad
beds
I imagine a future when the multiple lane highways are
overgrown
Though I do not know what will replace all that tarmac and
those vehicles.
That would be the fourth lifetime for the youth of today to
live out
Finding alternatives to using the atmosphere and oceans and
earth as a dump
Learning how to close the cycle so that everything is a
resource to re-use
Creating a healthy ecosystem where all life can thrive.
The alternative continuation of the present trajectory
Brings about the sixth mass extinction
Our amazing success creating the seeds of our destruction
Unable to adapt to the new conditions we have caused.
