The brevity of life.

Recently, Ainan has taken to considering the brevity of life. It troubles him, somewhat, to look ahead and see so few years to come.

“Life is SO short,” Ainan, said, a few days ago, without preamble. He almost seemed to be cursing its brevity.

“I am 12.”, he continued, a little too soberly, “...and that took no time at all, to reach.”

I kept quiet at that point. I held in my mind a thought I knew he wouldn’t want to hear: that I am 44 – and that took no time at all, to reach either. However old a human gets, they will still feel the same: that it took no time at all to reach their present age. It is one of the odd facts of our existence – that we would feel even the infinite were but an instant.

“Your generation should live a lot longer than mine.”, I said, to comfort him.

“I don’t know about that.”, he countered, a little too sure of himself.

“You think the world is going to have a catastrophic future?”

He just nodded in answer. Ainan didn’t think much of the way the world was being managed by its “leaders” – and was well aware of the steadily accumulating environmental issues, energy problems, pollution, species loss, potential ecosystem collapse and the generally apocalyptic trend of human mismanagement of nature. He didn’t see much hope in the face of it, primarily because he didn’t think much of the competence of those making the relevant decisions.

“No. It won’t.” I said, not quite certain of it, myself.

He just shook his head, deflecting my words and walked off, his thoughts a little too sombre.

Not for the first time, I considered the connection between high intelligence and a sobering view of reality. Smart people tend to understand, too well, the problems Mankind faces and see, too clearly, the limits those could place on their own places – so they can tend to be a little pessimistic as to what is to come.  Dumber types, however, are quite content to be happily ignorant and dismissive of all the darker possibilities. They will live quite happily...until they finally realize how wrong they were to be so content about it all.

Ainan, however, cannot know the ease of the dumb. He sees what might lie ahead and knows the enormity of the challenges Mankind faces. He also knows, the collective dumbness of those charged with navigating what lies ahead. It is not a happy realization.

Think back to what you were like at 12. Were you concerned at the brevity of life and convinced of hard times ahead for the human race? Let me know what you thought, below, so that I might compare your perspectives to Ainan’s.

Thank you.

Posted by Valentine Cawley

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