Living In Style

Do you know how many people are murdered every day? I don't. I see a few animals/insects eat other animals/insects most everyday, though.

Do you hold an opinion, weak or strong, about the phrase "global warming"? I don't. I see local and global phenomena related to temperature differentials, though.

Right now, a migrating flock of birds flies back and forth from the same tree. Smaller groups of them fly away and fly back. Finally, they all disappear from my view.

I'm told that swans and Canada geese mate for life, indicating monogamy is a good survival trait for species, I suppose.

What or who is a writer? Some storytellers are writers. Some writers are financially compensated for their writing. All of us write the stories of our lives, with no time or ability to edit and rewrite the past the way we lived it (although most will remember the past in a selective manner but memories are not the stories of our lives).

Today, I think out loud on electronic paper, repeating the words and thoughts of billions. Reflecting but not a reflection. Inflection. Detection. Sounding out my thoughts in the banged-together thought process called the English language, an amalgam of mangled symbols from many cultures, past and present.

So let's say that the average age of a member of our species before dying continues to go up and our average age of conception ability goes down but our average age of last conception stays about the same. At the same time, the cultural training of our species goes up, requiring longer and longer (and/or more intense) sessions in formal situations to ensure we educate our species' children to function anywhere in our global economy. Thus, our children can have children at a younger age, all of whom will live longer, but to succeed anywhere in our ecumenopolis they must spend longer time in education. Does that mean anything? I don't know. Foods full of stimulants and leftover growth products in animals/vegetables, delayed entry into the workforce, and pills for longevity, I suppose.

Do you think you have a purpose for living? If so, then you must know that the world is full of people with other purposes for living besides yours. No matter what we call a purpose, we live. We breathe, eat and exist with others. Rich, poor, leisure, labour, pain, pleasure, happy, sad.

I'm not going anywhere with this. I'm thinking through a line of reasoning in my thoughts to see where our species should be headed next. I don't exist outside of this time I'm in, so I can only imagine what our species will be doing a hundred or a thousand years from now, or more importantly, a thousand generations from now. What we do today sets us one step closer to the next generation's perceived destiny/purpose. Do we want future generations to have the same purpose for living as ours? I don't know.

What I do know is that the general condition of a member of our species will be about the same - born, live, die. How any one member will live in style, I do not know. Despite what I don't know, my existence and what I do while I live here in this time determines what will happen to or what will be available for future generations. People in the future will study our behaviour as if we knew what we were doing and what we were doing to ensure the success of future generations.

I live in the moment. That's all I have. One moment followed by the next one, ad infinitum (my set of moments are limited, I know, but moments as a concept are infinite). I have already experienced the transition of knowledge between trained to believe I'm uniquely special to discovering I'm unique just like everybody else. I have survived to this point in my life without being murdered and eaten or adversely affected by concepts like global warming, able to write about my experiences of living in the moment. I am the result of generations past and the influence, known and unknown, on generations in the future.

I have one life to live here as a member of our species. I see myself as a person in the moment who deals with those around me and our give-and-take, back-and-forth flow of personality influences. I also see myself as a general member of our species, representing us as if I'm at the front of the group of all of us heading blind into the future. In both cases, life in the moment is an experience and an experiment on seven billion different current reasons to live (albeit generally categorisable).

We exist. Our existence gives us the right to whine and complain and celebrate about, with fight for or flight from, others' influence on our right to believe in our purpose for living. We can say what we want in a public forum as long as we realize our influence on others and are willing to face the consequences of our free speech in the moment and on future generations. Certainly, we are free to be or say what we want, wherever and whenever we want, but woe to those who exercise that freedom when others strongly disagree - no doubt, the consequences will make themselves clear in the next moment - the balance of nature exhibited in the behaviour of our species in action, not just words.

I live freely but I also live at the mercy of those around me. We live together in this moment, not a previous or future moment. We can push our purpose for living on others. We can announce our purpose for living and others will follow along or fight against our purpose. We can live quiet, unassuming lives that barely get the attention of others around us, purpose or no purpose standing out. In all these cases (and more!) we determine the set of conditions for ourselves and others in future moments. This moment affects the next moment, ad infinitum (hopefully, not ad nauseum!).

Have I discovered anything new in this blog entry? I don't know. I feel like there's something just out of sight, like sensing the flock of birds somewhere else in the environment right now. I live in the moment. I have the Book of the Future. We live in an ecumenopolis. We're prepared to move our species onto other planetary bodies. We are on the verge of seeing the universe in a whole new light, just like every generation before us has seen the universe in a whole new light, backwards in time ad infinitum.

My gut says I'm working with others to see education as a solution, not a problem; unemployment as a solution, not a problem; the separation of political entities as a problem, not a solution; mass starvation as a problem, not a solution; universal health care as both a problem and a solution. All while allowing seven billion different opinions on what life's all about.

Imagine you have the world in your hand. You know why the world's atmosphere changes and you know what the atmosphere will be like over the next 20,000 years, plus or minus a few variations along the timeline. You have all the information you need to categorise individual members of our species into interlinked groups, subgroups, cultures and subcultures. You know from birth a person's susceptibility to known diseases, propensity for social behaviour types and possible cultural importance. You want every person to provide positive reinforcement for the species so you foster their growth to meet their potential, regardless of what you think of any one individual's potential. You may know one person who will be a psychotic killer, another person an expert surgeon and another person who will wander from one place to another almost randomly despite strong potential for one characteristic or behaviour at birth. At all times, you maintain your goal of positive reinforcement toward long-term survival of your species, allowing flexibility in the changes to individuals as their timelines decrease because randomness is also part of your plan.

Of course, you don't have to imagine holding the world in your hand. You already do. When you can see yourself on one spot on this planet while also holding the whole planet, then you understand why you're important in the moment.

I hold the world in my hand. I see every one of you. I don't force my opinion down your throat. I find those who agree with my goal of getting our species extraterrestrial while allowing the rest of you to live the lives you want, directly or indirectly contributing to my goal which also includes the general care and maintenance of our species. Some of you will get in my way. I'll get in the way of some of you. When that happens, we'll see who has to move around whom or what in the next moment.

Well, what do you know? Here's the next moment. Talk to you again soon. Thanks for all the letters, gift, emails, text and other means of communication between us. Life is what it is. I wouldn't have it any other way in this moment.