My thirtieth trip around the sun

As I lay here awake, unable to sleep, I realize that my thirtieth trip around the sun is drawing to a close. An array of thoughts run through my head, ranging from have I done well with my life this far? To what does the future hold in a time of such extreme uncertainty? I wonder, will my next thirty years be as prosperous, or perhaps more so? I try to balance the natural pessimism with a healthy dose of optimism fused with the harsh reality that we face. We as humans have come so far in many ways over the past three decades, yet have regressed in others.

Memories of times past

I can still remember the day that my father brought home our first personal computer. It was a Windows 95 machine that consisted of a large box and a huge monitor. I remember opening the packaging and being amazed at the mouse and keyboard that were housed inside. I then proceeded to spend many hours playing games such as SkiFree or Lemmings. It was not until the mid-nineties that we would first install a modem into our computer to connect to the world wide web. 

Another set of fond memories was that of the house that we would live in was always under renovation of sorts. My father would purchase a home at a reasonable price, and then we would be renovating it for years, sometimes decades. It's interesting to note that he rarely got to enjoy the fruits of his labors in this department. My father was working or would move from the house as soon as it had been renovated. This enterprising mentality wore off on me. 

Many hard times have forged the steel of my soul into existence. Two islands of hardship came through my parent's divorce and my father's struggle with Bi-polar disease. The separation process lasted for over a year and was neither pleasant or straightforward. Having a Bi-polar father is nearly impossible to explain to someone who has not had the experience. There are times that they are their awesome selves, and then there are times they are Mr. Hyde. I would not trade these experiences for anything as they have made me who I am. 

Perspective

Perhaps here we can take a departure from a memory-laden script to contemplate the passage of time, and scale of the universe compared to our lives. The cosmos is so vast that it will never be comprehensible entirely by the human mind. In the grand scheme of things, our lifespan is but a blip of time in reality. To gain perspective, let us explore time briefly in the context of a star's life. 

Stars live for a varied amount of time. The larger they are, the faster they burn out. Sort of like the saying, a candle that burns twice as bright, burns half as long. However, these "fast" burning stars live millions of years, and the slow-burning ones can live up to 15 billion years! Let's think about the closest and most well-known star to us, the sun. This star is about 5 billion years old and, according to scientists, has enough fuel for about 5 billion more years. This example is known as an "average" sized star. 

What does this mean in the context of life? Being optimistic, humans live for about 100 years. This notion implies that the maximum human lifespan is about 0.000002% of that of our sun. Even if a star only lived 3 million years, the maximum human lifespan is still only 0.0033% of that of a star. In other words, the shortest lifespan of a star is thirty thousand times longer than that of the most extended human life! This idea should drive home the point that we are only on this earth for a sliver of time!

When we die, the universe will go on, likely for billions and billions of years without us. There is an incomprehensible number of stars in the cosmos. The context is so broad that it means nothing to normal human beings. Each of these stars will live somewhere between several million to tens of billions of years. We will live for an estimated maximum of one hundred years that is 5,200 weeks. Most of us are at least a quarter to halfway through that right now. I stand at about ¼ to ⅓ through my life right now and this drives me to continue to change and grow.

The state of the world

At the time of writing this note, thirty years and seven days ago, my father would have been twenty-seven, as I was being born. I am now three years his senior at that age and have no children. Little did I know that all he wanted for me was to find a nice woman and have children. These thoughts were before he decided to take his own life at the end of last July. I would only find this out through a mentally unstable ex-girlfriend of his some time after his death. 

My father's passing has marked a stark turning point in my life and the world at large. About six months after his death, a new decade began for the masses, and now five months after that, I prepare to embark on a new decade of my own. However, I cannot help but feel a sense of worry and skepticism toward the state of the globe. I don't believe my next thirty years will be like my last. 

It seems as though the novel coronavirus that is sweeping the planet is merely a tipping point for a teeter-totter that has become incredibly imbalanced over decades. We have become tremendously vulnerable to trade disruptions and have neglected the educational system allowing it to rot from its core. As a result of this slow decline, we do not approach moral and ethical dilemmas with sound reasoning and logic. Still, we prefer to leave those seemingly unimportant judgments to our feelings. 

Instead of working hard to learn about something and base our opinions on the facts, we take the route of less resistance and do what we "feel" to be right. This ethical and moral degradation is evident everywhere "rights" are demanded and arguably have a spokesman being our president himself. Amidst this global health and now an economic crisis, people are saying, "...you don't want to bet against America's economy…" (Jerome Powell) or "I remain convinced… nothing can [] stop America…" (Warren Buffett) Questions like "but will it?" arise quickly to mind.

Have we swung too far and let the bedrock of freedom, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness be washed away from beneath our feet? And before our very eyes? I could argue this is a resounding "yes," at least to the degree and form in which it once was. Until we face this cold and harsh reality, the system as we have it now will continue to decay. 

Conclusions

I don't know what my next thirty years will entail; I know that they won't look like the last three decades. I reserve a positive outlook in the light of human ingenuity, but skeptical in our ability to act before it is too late. We respond when we feel fear; we feel fear when we perceive an imminent threat. Unfortunately, when a threat such as a pandemic, climate change, overpopulation, or other ecological disasters loom in a forthcoming fashion, it is already too late. I know that mother nature will give us the boot if we do not change. I see the earth, moon, galaxy, and universe continuing for millennia, with or without the human race.  

This letter to commemorate my thirty years is a plea to wake up and do what you can now. Don't rush to conclusions but become eager to learn. Don't tell us what we should do, but help to cultivate a culture of curiosity, empathy, and love. We need fewer experts and many more lifelong learners. Experts are so often people who think that they do not need to learn anymore as they either already know enough, or know everything. We need people who are not only okay with not knowing but embrace the vast and bizarre mystery of life with open arms, open minds, and closed mouths. Curiosity did not kill the cat, unwarranted knowing, certainty, and confidence did.