There never was a Golden Age, though every generation seems convinced that there was one. Each successive wave of humanity is burdened by childhood memories of less stressful times and tales of great things done by those before them. Even in the most primitive societies, where existence is literally hand-to-mouth and children are ritually pressed in to service in the pursuit of mere survival, children lack the cognitive resources required to fully comprehend that struggle. In the later years of their lives they usually remember childhood as being far freer than the current circumstances. They are wrong- they simply could not take the true measure of the challenges life presented when they were young.

I envy the youthful, and not with any sort of bitterness. I do not suffer from the age induced resentfulness of quicker minds unchecked by accumulated wisdom for my mind is as sharp, for that matter sharper, as it was when I first became aware of my own existence. To be blunt about it I was not terribly bright when I was young. That was a time when I was most like all others around me, convinced that my time in this world was short, devoted to the pursuit of simple pleasures and simple needs. In those days I was foolish, and it was delightful. Young people are foolish; they take silly risks and ill-advised paths. They ignore the counsel of their elders. They shake the foundations of the known to cast aside the encrusted detritus of what is common wisdom. They are an indispensable part of humanity’s ceaseless quest for knowledge. They bring new light to old domains and cast off the tyranny of what-has-always-been. They also sow death and destruction and despair, but in the end the balance is mostly to the good.

Posted on December 9th, 2002 by Zsallia
Filed under: Immortality, Philosophy, The Past