The Greater Good...

I have learned through the process of black hair turning into gray that nothing in life is necessarily simple. In fact, the things that we sometimes take for granted because we are so used to dealing with day in and out are many times the same ones that freeze us in place when they change. I never gave a second thought to my ability to lift something heavy until one day while lifting something heavy I got stuck in the "what happened" position. For years I was perfectly capable of picking up things that were heavy because I prided myself of being a relatively strong man. Then one day I was downloading some hardware out of the back of a van at work and on the last trip to the storage locker as I was lowering a 55 pound container when my back screamed "UNCLE" with four letters instead of five. Enough pain killers and muscle relaxers and eventually I went back to normal, but that little voice in the back of my head now whispers "be careful" every time I consider trying to be too macho for my own good.

I remember when going up a mountain was what worried me, while now days going down seems to be more of a challenge because my knees are talking louder than my thighs. I can go on and on with different examples, especially if they are tied to getting older, but physique is not the only part of my life that has learned it's lessons. Like when we now say "If I only knew then what I know now," meaning that wisdom beats youth by a yardstick when making important decisions. Our ability to learn from our experiences is probably the most significant ingredient necessary to attain wisdom and become mature responsible adults. However, I have learned that age is not necessarily an accurate indicator of some one's maturity. This is obvious by noticing that what sociologists once considered to be beginning of adulthood at age 26 is now being stretched and prolonged until much later years.

A few years back CBS 60 Minutes correspondent Morley Safer had a broadcast that was titled "The Millennials Are Coming" which was very enlightening. If you have a minute or two click on the title above that will take you to the updated article and read it, I promise you will not regret having done so. The scariest point I got from the article was the realization that this particular generation which was featured in the broadcast seemed to be characterized by an adolescence that ends at the age of 30 pushing what is considered middle age all the way up to the age of 60. Apparently mental maturity is taking a backseat role in the newer generations. We somehow have managed to press the pause button on the mental development of billions of children that at this very moment are entering the work force around the whole world. This is a sociological consequence that should not be taken lightly, much less ignored. Eventually these children will be having children of their own and the time lag for these young adults to leave the nest and take responsibility for their lives and that of their offspring's will become even greater. I doubt it very much that 26 years ago parents would be able to visualize themselves living in a society in which adolescence and the entire spectrum of it's habits and challenges would be imposed upon them until the ripe age of past their thirties and maybe even forties. I can imagine that some of you at this very moment might be saying to yourselves, "not me, not my kids, no way I will allow this to happen with my children." Sadly enough you might find yourself in this predicament without realizing what hit you.

This reality that some of you are probably reluctant to accept is by no means a done deal. Like everything else in life, there are exceptions to every rule and at the beginning of this trend we will probably find many parents which somehow have been able to influence their children's mental growth in such a way that will allow them to escape this sad societal outcome. However, I find it hard to believe that these fortunate and dedicated offspring's will in turn be able to keep the same success rate as their parents in a future that seems so decided in it's path to overpower the masses with its technological marvels and the speed of progress. When I was ten years old the most advanced video game available for me to indulge myself with was PONG created by Atari Incorporated. Who could of ever dreamed that those two dimensional little paddles sitting opposite to each other controlling the flow of a green dot on a video screen that bounced according to the programming rules created by Allan Alcorn would less than forty years later turn into the mega game industry that we are all experiencing today? Table tennis my friends, that is all that PONG really was, a Forrest Gump experience! Yet nothing has been able to stop, or probably ever will, this industry that today consumes the minds of so many or our children. Before this game we just took the time to pull out the ping pong table at our home, or friends home and played while we laughed, sweat, and developed a pool of relationships between all that surrounded us. I am not saying that PONG is the culprit to our woes, not at all. I am simply stating the origin of our current overwhelming video game industry that has created dusty patio tables out of our childhood entertainment centers.

I personally refuse to accept the above scenario even though I am already living through some of it with my own kids. I am guilty of loving video games as much as the rest of my generation loved them. I was one of those kids that became fascinated with the technology and by the time I had my own children lived vicariously through their own fascination too. Like most of us in my age group though, I was left behind in the dust once technology developed too quickly and game play became too complicated. Controllers suddenly had too many buttons for my simple taste and mind. There was too much to pay attention on the screen instead of the simple creature eating dots and ghosts that I had become accustomed to. I held on for a while being able to participate with my children in some of the more basic three dimensional games that meant controlling simpler things like race cars and airplanes, but eventually the joy was over once the games became too elaborate to play. Even though I am an engineer and work with advanced technology, not once as I watched my kids play when they were really young did I imagine that it would get so out of hand, sophisticated, and mentally consuming. I guarantee you that it is a lot easier to see the possible ill effects of this industry today than it was 10 years ago. It even seems obvious now that it has to have it's down side for a child to spend so many hours playing all those games.

The truth is that nothing in life is as simple as it seems. I find myself realizing years later the consequences of some of the dumbest actions I took as a young father with my children. The lessons I have learned are so many that all I can truly say with certainty today is that I am so much wiser than I was then. If I knew then what I know now...has become part of my storyline as it was in the past a part of my own parent's too. Somehow I need to find a more permanent repository for all of this knowledge that my aching body and eventually feeble mind now contains. Not just mine, yours too. Between us, not just the lucky ones that have been gifted with the talent of writing a good book, we somehow need to create a collection of these lessons that we all have to share for the greater good. Would it not be amazing if the same technology and society that has so eagerly taken away our children's ability to mature into young adults at the same age as our parents could create some kind of process that would replenish future generations with our lessons learned? This, in my mind, seems to be the most enticing invention humanity could ever create for its future generations. The ability to truly learn from our mistakes as a collective would be the most amazing gift ever created by any society. It would be pretty much like purchasing a ticket to happiness.

Thank you for reading today's post. I truly am enjoying sharing with you.

Dad