Childhood's End

There was a book I read when I was a teenager. I went through a bunch of science fiction stories in my desire to escape from the world I was slowly coming to know.  This book scared and delighted me. Looking back on it, as is my elderly want, I see it a little differently. At the time I was horrified that adulthood, assuming the real powers that Life had endowed us with, meant the destruction of our home planet. The book was named Childhood’s End (by Isaac Asimov), and even today it is making me think.

I think we have come to the time where, as a species, our childhood is ending. In the book, the planet Earth was destroyed by teenage exuberance. Human children had inherited, in an evolutionary leap, mental powers that they could not contain. In a spasm of discovery, they destroyed their beginning place. In the book this wasn’t that traumatic because it was clear that this destruction was just part of these children discovering they were made to inhabit the Cosmos. Today, I am less certain this is a good thing. Is it possible we could grow up, as a species, without destroying everything we’ve been?

I don’t know about you, but this question haunts me. I can’t say that I feel optimistic. I don’t rule the possibility out. I count on Mother Nature having something up her sleeve. I know, from my time amongst the elders, that we, as a species, can be changed. The right kind of hardship could alter us, could grow us up. I live with a certain amount of dreadful hope. I look forward to what I think will be too difficult to imagine. I don’t expect to survive. I want to, not to pass my genes on, but because I would like to be part of a world where I felt us pulling together, counting on each other, caring about the miracle we’re part of.

I think that time could be now, but it isn’t.  So, I live in a world where I feel an impending something, there is a storm cloud on the horizon, a shock-wave coming, a last moment of daylight, a gathering of the hopeful. I teeter on this moment of uncertainty. I am sometimes happy, sometimes sad, and always expectant. I want so desperately to see a way forward. What I see instead is many people coming forward with solutions. I’m skeptical, although I want to believe.

Teetering is a hardship. Maybe recognizing what we have wrought will bring us to our senses. Maybe the danger we pose to each other, to ourselves, will shake us. Do things have to get worse before they get better? Aren’t things bad enough now? I’d like to think it is possible to wise up under the present circumstances. I suppose that is part of why I want to hang out with elders. Certainly, my life has been enriched, by rubbing shoulders with those who have suffered and grown. But, we (elders) are still so unknown, and our kind remains so undeveloped. The last one billion of us were only born in the last 12 years.

I don’t know what to think. I want to, but I can’t shut off my mind. I know many have. I envy them sometimes, but I know my heart really depends upon my keeping my ear to the ground.

I can feel that there is an earthquake coming! The terrible thing is, that despite all my awareness, despite the loved ones I cling to, despite the efforts of others that care, I sense that none of us is really prepared. I console myself with thoughts of initiation, social metamorphosis, a general awakening, but I don’t see it happening yet. The Occupy movement seems to offer some hope, but hope for what, economic equity in a time of economic chaos, social justice in the face of massive social distrust.

Change, it is here, impacting everyone. Do we have to destroy this world to grow into another one? I don’t know. There is that much I can hope about, what I don’t know. Surprise! That is what is left to believe in, to prepare for, to be transformed by. That, and knowing, that this, is the time of childhood’s end.

I have also added a link. I don’t usually recommend websites but I have long felt that we (society) needed a vision of a future worth having and this short film points in that direction, Check it out http://www.ted.com/talks/nic_marks_the_happy_planet_index.html?utm_source=newsletter_weekly_2010-08-31&utm_campaign=newsletter_weekly&utm_medium=email