200 years ago, on February 12, Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln were born. Yeah - both of 'em. On the same date. I saw that and thought to myself how short-sighted we are - in two directions! Humans are always more ready to believe gloom and doom predictions than to believe that things are good and happy, or that they might become so. And we are also very willing to believe that Now More Than Ever there are pressures and troubles and a fast paced world and more innovations and blah blah blah ... Now More Than Ever.
But think. What was the world to people 200 years ago? What changes and innovations were on the horizon then? How fast was everything expanding? How dire did things seem? What opportunities? What global crises and what problems to be solved?
Thus it has ever been, ebbing and flowing, contracting and expanding, the whole of the universe of human experience is what it was ... and is what it never was because it cannot be. There are humans involved.
Two hundred years ago, two women had baby boys in the dark of a February day, and no one could tell then whether those boys would live to adulthood (because we never know that). No one could tell what changes would come to the world because those two boys did become men. I wonder who was born today. Two hundred years from now, when people say that Now More Than Ever the world has changed, what babies will be part of the reason?
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