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

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page.

To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 5, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here:http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at:http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is athttp://www.genghiscan.com/This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.) 

A belated Happy Valentine's Day, 2011.

I would like to wish you all a Happy Valentine’s Day, if belatedly. I didn’t find time on the 14th February to post this, since it was, as many of you know, my birthday, too, and I was rather busy.

I hope you all had a great day, whether you celebrated it, or not. As for me, I am now officially one year older.

Some might be curious about what Tiarnan actually bought me for my birthday, after his urging for Transformers. In the end, he chose something more to my taste, if a little cheeky: a little book of quotations, on getting old! It was his own choice, not prompted by his mother. He just seemed to find it apt, for Daddy, “This is about birthdays.”, he concluded, “Daddy will like it.”

I do like it. Even if it is a reminder of the paucity of birthdays we all face (presently, anyway).

Thank you Tiarnan, for your surprising gift. Thanks to my other boys and my wife, too, for making my birthday a memorable one. In particular, I am pleased about the African restaurant Syahidah proposed – where I managed to have a truly unique meal, eating foods I have never eaten before. That is a memory I shall never forget.

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page. To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here: http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at: http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is at http://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)