I Turned Sixty a Few Days Ago.
And I’m feeling cautiously optimistic.
It’s a cliche to say that time flies, but that’s what I’m feeling. I’m sixty years old, my daughter is almost thirty-five, and it’s already the second decade of the twenty-first century.
I can remember when people said things like “Maybe in the twenty-first century…,” meaning far, far into the future: so far that is was an almost unimaginable time.
We may not have flying cars yet, but driverless cars powered by electricity are on the horizon. The New York Times has reported that UFOs might be real. Violence might be going out of style. All things that made the prospect of this century, back in the previous century, so full of dazzling possibilities.
Of course, civilization is still in danger of ending with a total destruction of the natural environment and, if civilization survives, it might entail a vast, poverty-stricken underclass be ruled by a tiny billionaire or trillionaire elite. Things are still a bit uncertain, but this could be the century when Homo Sapiens decides to grow up and collectively get over itself. We could decide to cooperate and take care of each other along with the earth that makes life and consciousness possible.
The oil industry is in its last, dying gasps, as are the oligarchs that derive their…
