It has been a crazy few weeks. I have written three other treatises that I decided not to publish. They weren’t that bad but I confused even myself. There are so many different crosscurrents in today’s world. It is so easy to blame others or yearn for the good old days.

I have decided that I am tired of analyzing and parsing, seeking that certain something that will unlock the secrets of life. I no longer want to listen to everything bad in the world. I could care less about Trump, Biden, Netanyahu, Musk and Bezos to name a few. Met Galas, Tom Brady, and LIV/PGA controversy are not worth my time. I am just going to look into the mirror and figure out how to move forward.

It finally dawned on me that we truly do live in a different world than when I grew up. That time was bland and predictable. If you worked hard and did your 25 years you would get a gold watch. In Bye Bye Birdie, Paul Lynde reveled they were going to be on Ed Sullivan. Ozzie and Harriet as well as Mr. Ed were Nirvana. It was in a phrase, a fairy tale. Not bad but uneventful.

As more and more people went to college new ideas were introduced. Travel went from trains to jets around the world. Computers became ubiquitous and the genie came out of the bottle. And that was 30-40 years ago. We have morphed by leaps and bounds. Some good, some bad, but that is life.

Awhile back there were going to be too many people on the planet to be able to feed the world. In coming years there may not be enough people working to feed the world. We were going to run out of oil and of course the future was in plastics, Mrs. Robinson. Just recently we were teetering between, recessions, soft landings, and catastrophic bank failures. And we pay a lot of money to a lot of people to figure all this out.

The rate of change has ramped up, and with AI it is going to seem like warp speed. The way we communicate, the way we work, even the way we leisure will take on all new symbols and nuances. We are creating a Brave New World whether we like it or not.

The most essential part to ponder is demographics. We are becoming older on one end and not younger on the other. Birthrate seems like a callous number of 2.2 or 1.8. How do you have a .2 child? Plain and simple we need to start having babies to man our workforces that produce our food, build our homes and take care of us when we start to drool. They also need to provide wages to be taxed to support an ever increasing populace of old age.

All this comes at a time when a new generation is avoiding long term relationships, commitment and family creation. Couples are worrying about themselves and find rug rats to be a tedious exercise. They want careers, wealth and off time that exist in an urban environment. They are not even sure if they want each other. They can chat with bots or while the hours away with every type of amusement on line.

Hyperbole? I think not. This old fart is trying to understand a world that bears little resemblance to 70’s and even 80’s. It is easy to dismiss this as a fad or passing fancy but if we dig deeper we will find it is a different way of approaching life. We can call it the Me or I generation which is a cute moniker, but ain’t going to go away. You are grounded or go to your room disappeared a long time ago. This is real.

I say all this with a tad bit of alarm but also a new acceptance. We have failed these kids in so many ways. We abandoned them from lack of oversight. We were too busy with our careers. Discipline was replaced with being buddies to get the most out of any time spent. We became so entranced with the right thing whether it was dress, friends, or schools, we threw money at concerts, specialized summer camps or spring breaks in all parts of the world.

Our institutions from religion, government and even business have had less than ethical and upright people at the helm. I am not sure if it is a new reality or old flaws that have finally been exposed. The point I am trying to make is this is a world that is being recreated and we really have little control over it. How is any young person going to get a feel good about the two idiots we are proposing to lead this great country? This is all a continuation or remnants of a system we have let happen by OUR negligence and abdication of responsibility.

Does this mean we are going to die as a country or civilization? No, in the most emphatic way. From Pax Romana to the Age of Enlightenment to the Industrial Age and to the AI revolution, we have figured out a way to make it work. Sometimes it is well thought out and other times we have just muddled along.

The thing I fear most is our method and depth of interacting. We don’t have a sense of community or if we do it is so narrow and selfish that the good will created is for the few. We seem to feel we can exist in a bubble and the rest of the world be damned. That holds true for rich or poor.

I have looked in the mirror. I think I will have to work small. See if I can affect my own little world first. See if I can understand where different people are coming from. Then maybe we can find something in common and build on that.

As always
Ted The Great

Factoids:
People drive economies. They produce things and then buy things and of course they need medical assistance, shelter and food. AI will not create that dynamic.

One major deterrent to having children is economic. It takes a lot to raise a child from care, clothing, education and time. The best outcome is raising a healthy and contributing member of society. There are no shortcuts.

New data from a consumer study released in June, 2023, found 34% of Americans expect to spend more time by themselves with 37% saying they don’t interact with anyone at least once a week.
The Sense of Community has four components: membership, influence, fulfillment of needs, and emotional connection.Think about your family, town, club or country and tell me how that is working for you.

The key to solving the aging population dilemma is immigration…but we won’t go there. Ha!