10.28.10 - 10:00 am

i remember throughout school, being absolutely fascinated by people born in the late 1800s who were able to survive through the mid or even late 1900s. people who essentially time traveled from one type of society into the future. paved roads, superhighways, automobiles, airplanes, internet, cell phones, civil rights, moon landings, world wars....the 1900s were an absolute blitz of major historical events and technological advancement. and so many people participated in the entire experience.

and being born in the 1800s, before any of that, it must have just been mind blowing to comprehend. suddenly people were able to save their memories on pieces of paper. first in crude blacks and whites, then suddenly vibrant color. saving moments in time...on paper. how did they come to understand this? the television. landing on the moon. it can be diluted down to such insignificance for those of us born after and know of nothing else.

what if these people were born in the frontier days of the west coast in in the 1880s. how did people born of dirt roads and hand built homes and horse drawn carts come to terms with understanding the automobile and then cellular telephones? obviously the last 120 years gradually adapted them to such marvelous changes in lifestyle. its only so stirring to me because im sitting here in my pajamas reducing the vast amount of time to a rapid flash of images from encyclopedias.

encyclopedias. ha. i mean wikipedia.

i hear they retired the walkman this year. cassette tapes. ridiculous. im pretty sure i remember buying my first cassette tape. dookie, by green day. i dont think i had a cd player yet. that would have been sometime in 1994.

being born in the 1980s, i am absolutely glowing with excitement for the changes ill witness in my life time. by the time i die sometime in the late 2000s, i want to have seen just as much global advancement as that generation from the previous century has. tv and computer screens reduced to floating holographs you can touch and interact with. manned missions deeper into space or to mars. flying cars. invisibility. things i wont even be able to conjure up in my imagination. its so thrilling.

but so bittersweet. the exciting taste of the unknown future is soured by the thoughts of my own mortality. i have a rough estimated period of time i know when i be dead by. 2060? 2090? i told myself as a child i wanted to at least see halleys comet return in 2061. what saddens me the most is that i will suddenly cease to be apart of historical events. like i wont be invited to this years christmas party, i wont even get to see the facebook pictures the following day. ill miss out on all the exciting things the future holds for everyone else. never mind missing out on my family and friends, i will not be able to witness any more changes to the broader human historical narrative. deeply humbling. im already vastly frustrated with my inability to travel through time and experience the past. dinosaurs, the lincoln presidency, precambrian life in the warm oceans, watching the moon landing on a tiny fuzzy tv, and the mayan civilization. death is such an inconvenience for experience. i am so inconsequentially brief.

i would not pass up the opportunity for immortality. ever. but what about watching everyone you know and love grow old and die? my grandfather is experiencing this. a fleeting taste of immortality while grumpily explaining he doesnt want to live to 100. but why not?! a million years from now i would love to be standing on the smoldering ruins of our planet. sure id be bored. however, im fairly confident that even after a millennia i would still experience the enthusiasm of looking forward to what happens next.

i hope i continue to have this same enthusiasm to live in spite of losing my legs in a car accident. or as im painfully consumed by cancer. if joe simpson can find the will to continuing living, i can too.