| Time and Effect |
[Oct. 6th, 2006|01:07 am] |
The world is a different place these days. It is almost beyond the comprehension of most likely readers of this entry just HOW different.
Allow me to explain. And if you're offended, you need a reality check, because what I am describing is what genuinely was.
I grew up in a world where Britain, Canada, and after WW2, America, dominated the planet. This was destiny, it was Meant To Be. It was our burden to rule the lesser nations and their inferior populations. Such had it always been, and so it shall always be. They existed for our entertainment, nothing more.
This was ingrained in me from birth by family (who grew up, obviously, in even earlier times) friends, books, TV and movies.
It was reinforced by the neighbourhood I lived in, frozen in time in the '50s. The area had been built a century before; houses had coal cellars! Trees were large and mature, and there were wetlands nearby. Paradise for a kid!
We stayed in that place long enough that I literally could not imagine an alternative, and being a kid, was not inclined to try. After all, ruling the world was COOL.
However, a number of very jarring dislocations were fated to take place.
First, we moved to a new neighbourhood. Only a few years old, there were no snails or toads to catch. It was a sterile place. But that was okay with me, for I had always been fascinated by the Glorious Future, probably beginning with the things I'd seen at Expo '67. Naturally, there would be no room for snails and toads in the Brave New World.
School would turn out to be yet another shock. The teachers had long hair. The classrooms didn't have walls. (Well...they folded up.) We could watch TV in class. A far cry indeed from my old 1880's school.
Naturally, I fit in about as well as you'd expect. It took a while.
And the things they taught us! It was all wrong. Africa had civilization? Only what we put there, said I! Vietnam was wrong somehow? Communists in our schools! And "social studies"..including rudimentary sex ed. We didn't even speak of such things at home.
Fortunately kids are resiliant or I'd have been broken. Somehow I adapted.
I missed the Good Humour trucks and the traditional Christmases. But, I knew, sacrifices were needed to move forward.
Then, on an outing to Detroit, I saw my first black man. I kid you not, I was 9 or 10 before I knew they existed in North America outside TV and movies!
I did not react with hatred or violence but with curiousity. I turned to my father and said, pointing to the guy, "How does he know when to wash?" Logical. Can't see the dirt, can't tell when to take a bath, right? Nope. Yet another speed bump on the road to that "glorious future"; there'd be non-white people in it. Who knew?
But the biggest shock came from watching the end of the Vietnam War. America never lost, that was Gospel. But here they were pushing helicopters over the sides of the carriers to make room for..for..the enemy??
(I realized at an early age that all Vietnamese were VietCong. If only university students..and Presidents..had been so wise as I had been..)
But: America had been defeated. It would be years before I understood why, but at the time, it shook my world. Suddenly, I knew the "glorious future" was never meant to be after all.
I know now that the future (AKA "now") is merely entropy, the inevitable movement from order to chaos. Inertia is a wonderful thing, and this little corner of Canada managed to retain its traditions..more or less..until the '80s. I still fought the coming darkness, but deep down I knew we were destined not for glory but for abyssmal failure. Maybe this is why I read so many "alternate histories" and try to spend as much time as possible in the past or Another Future, with the help of such tools as, well, this thing. The Internet.
Sometimes, being right is cold comfort. There's nothing I can do, now, to restore the Future That Should Have Been. I can only remember how it was, and hope that someday, things will go our way again. We can correct the mistakes of the past on the way, of course. Use our strength to ensure that no human endures slavery again. Strike down communism and its genocidal cousins. Make use of the resources God gave us..all TEN planets..to turn the faltering junkheap that is current society back on the brightly-lit road to the Glorious Future they promised us.
But it will be a slow process, and I will not be around to see it, assuming any advances made in life extension will be either too late or too expensive to help me.
It's now up to you young punks. From around the world, from the places we saw as being "savage lands" included. We can't afford to waste their potential, now.
Anyway, those of you who have known me online or in person now, hopefully, understand why I am who I am.
And I expect you to make me proud...or by God I'll whup your sorry butt! Lisa, go cut me a switch! ;) |
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