Consider this a catch-up post, an announcement of the rewards sent out from my birthday post as well as a few misc thoughts. Sorry it's taken me so long to tally up the rewards from that post. I seem to always be a bit behind. But I always catch up eventually!
In that post I announced that I was going to give out 45 HSBI, one for each year of my age, either given to 45 commenters or divided up among those who did comment. Unfortunately I didn't get 45 comments. I think most people see the title involves a birthday and don't bother to click into it. Ah, I probably don't have 45 people who regularly read my posts anyway. Ah well—it was a hope!
So what I am doing is this. Everyone who commented on that post is getting 1 SBI. And the people who went above and beyond by giving long comments answered my questions, I'm dividing up the rest of the HSBI among you guys equally.
That means 1 SBI to 
That leaves 32 HSBI for 
Thank you, everyone, for the well wishes and great comments. I really enjoyed reading all of them.
So I guess I'm 45 and a week or so now. Moving into my 46th year on this planet has been.... pretty much the same. No big changes yet! I suppose next time I go to the doctor they may give me new tests and checks that my age qualifies me for, but I haven't done that yet.
As we age, I think we get a broader sense of just how short history is. When I was a kid, for example, I had a personal connection to WWII because my grandfather fought in it so it felt real and connected to me. I could somewhat imagine WWI, The Great War, because that would have been my grandpa's parents generation, although that was a bit unclear. Beyond that...? Ancient history. The American Civil War, for instance, might as well have been a fictional story. It didn't feel entirely real when I was a kid. It was so long ago, I felt, I just couldn't imagine it.
Then many years ago I was watching the Ken Burns documentary, The Civil War and he included footage from both the 50 year anniversary of that war in 1913 and the 75th anniversary in 1938. Seeing FDR giving a speech and old men who fought in that war shaking hands just blew my mind a little. Here I had two bubbles in my mind, one for the WWII era and FDR and another for the American Civil War era which still felt just a little fake to me. Previously these bubbles were separate but suddenly they were overlapping and I was just a little amazed.
As George put it, worlds were colliding!
Well, not with the disastrous results that plagued poor George. Rather it opened my young mind and started to give me a sense of just how short our modern history is. Here is some footage from that 1938 event. It starts with a speech by FDR and includes footage of the old vets from the war.
(You can find lots of better footage on YouTube if you want to go on a searching adventure.)
A few years ago my oldest son asked me about WWII. As I answered his questions, I found myself thinking that he is just about as far removed from WWII as my grandfather was from the American Civil War. That thought really put things into perspective. Just as my son might meet WWII vets, tho their number is rapidly dwindling, my grandpa would have been able to meet Civil War vets when he was alive. From there it's not that much of a leap to think that when some of those Civil War vets were kids, they may have bumped into veterans of the American Revolution. And just like that, I am connected to the beginning of America in just a few short leaps.
At Kottke.org he posts about this same thing occasionally, calling it "The Great Span", referring to how when we measure in lifetimes of people, events that seem very distant suddenly become much closer, showing us how short history really is. He's written about it a lot, just follow this link if you want to find some of his posts on it.
Here's an excellent piece talking about the same thing. He follows back in history, starting with the recent death of historian Arthur Schlesinger.
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., one the United States' great historians, is less than two lifetimes removed from a world where the United States did not exist. Through Mr. Schlesinger, you're no more than three away yourself. That's how short the history of our nation really is.
It's really a great piece.
But entering my 46th year, I also find myself looking ahead. Advancements have been speeding up. We now have the first hints of the AI revolution to come. As my friend 
Kurzweil suggests that the progress of the entire 20th century would have been achieved in only 20 years at the rate of advancement in the year 2000—in other words, by 2000, the rate of progress was five times faster than the average rate of progress during the 20th century. He believes another 20th century’s worth of progress happened between 2000 and 2014 and that another 20th century’s worth of progress will happen by 2021, in only seven years. A couple decades later, he believes a 20th century’s worth of progress will happen multiple times in the same year, and even later, in less than one month. All in all, because of the Law of Accelerating Returns, Kurzweil believes that the 21st century will achieve 1,000 times the progress of the 20th century.
(again the Ecency preview isn't working very well... If the above paragraph doesn't show up as a blockquote, it is one from the linked article)
Is that doesn't blow your mind, I don't know what will. Just in the next decade the world might look completely different. It'll be a wild ride. Unless we do something dumb and kill ourselves. That would suck. But that has always been a danger, especially since the development of atomic bombs.
So, yeah, that's my first few steps beyond my birthday: my awareness of the shortness of the past rapidly expanding and my anticipation for the future increasing.
| David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. |
