This week someone commented his life had been lived in the best of all ages.
As an American who has spent most of sixty years in the United States, I
agree. I am unaware of another time or place offering greater privileges and
opportunities. I feel blessed and fortunate to live in this country the
last six decades.
I also am aware of the powerful deception the past fifty years produced.
This deception expresses itself in many ways. The deception: we have the
power to produce ideal lives. We think we have the power and intelligence
to do anything. We can and will make it happen. Our dream of ideal
existence will become reality.
Need a new liver? lungs? heart? Right now you can have a transplant. In
the future we can grow transplants. Knee or hip worn out? We can replace
them. Need an arm? a leg? a hand? They can be replaced; they may even
function as your mind directs.
We can cure many of the incurables of forty years ago. With time, that list
will grow. Severe respiratory problems? We can help you breathe. Heart
out of rhythm? We can make it beat properly and a pacemaker will keep it
in rhythm. Blood pressure up? We can control it. Blood too thick or thin?
No problem!
We envision the day when computers can do anything. Cars will drive
themselves. Lawn mowers will run themselves. Energy efficient houses will
create ideal living environments. And life will become the ultimate in joy!
What is "the ultimate in joy"? Will everyone experience it? Can everyone
afford it? How do you know that "joy" exists? by divorced marriages?
neglected spouses? children who feel abandoned? earnings that cannot feed
families? grief experiences? loneliness? emptiness? being an "outsider"?
living lives of "have nots"?
I have experienced both expectations and realities. I know the expectations
of labor-saving devices and the realities of their stress. I know the
expectations of "wonder" machines and the frustrations of their
malfunctions. I know the expectations of higher incomes and the realities
of prices.
Because of the nature of what I do, I frequently see the "wonderful life"
facade only to know the despair behind the facade. I know people who have
everything but have nothing. I know people who have nothing but have
everything. Commonly, expectation becomes cruel deceit. Commonly, the
possession owns the owner. Commonly, people confuse pleasures with values.
[Values fulfill; pleasures produce selfish people.] Commonly, people invest
the precious in matters that grow increasing insignificant.
We parents sacrifice for twenty years so our children "can have it better
than we did." Sorrowfully, often in thirty years we learn what our children
have is not "heaven on earth." And "heaven on earth" becomes "hell on
earth."
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