How can a person so smart be unwise? I've noticed that smart techno bosses, when they reach older age, can renounce former mindsets. It's fine, because we need the blind exuberance of running with an idea to make the progress, which has shown to be ultimately pretty dangerous, and maybe even unmanageable, and perhaps not that progressive in terms of humanity, like "the humanity" of humanity. Look at the first big one: The Industrial Revolution, which led to the obsession around growth (without necessarily always of hardly ever thinking of the consequences). What brought us this remarkable enabling industrial complex lead to awesome warfighting capability and the biggest catastrophe yet in human history (WWI & II). Its technology supported landing on the moon and the next big revolution: tech. Which now is both helping and harming us. It's saved billions of lives and it has led to some disturbing trends which could potentially bring it all down in 2 swell swoops. The first is climate change, and the second is AI/Social Media and it's unpredictable influence on politics and government. When we stop trusting the government for real (we're like 20% there?), the termites could eventually weaken the foundation enough to have it crumble. Or is conflagration a better metaphor, once we reach a criticality. If we even last long enough to reach the theoretical Singularity of AI.
So that's the background, but let's turn the perspective back into the everyday life or normal humans. Wisdom makes it pretty clear that a life well lived doesn't depend on any of those things, and people go on living their normal, regular, amazing lives despite all of the cataclysms impinging on us from the macro world. The final calculus for a life well lived, though with considerable variation on this theme, is having satisfying interactions with the universe that make us feel human. For most of us, it's probably our friends and loved ones, the close cadre of our people. For others it might even be their moments in nature or with their animals and pets. For some, it might be how they see their work has touched people's lives, but I'm guessing those people are most affirmed by the special, individual interactions they have with the people, their fellow humans/ animals, that have benefited from their service, and that might be what they need for their deepest, most meaningful life experiences. For everyone I've ever heard talk about it, it's those personal connections (even if it's with "nature" or "the Universe" or their version of God) that, in the end, we value most. That really mattered and matter to us.
Spending time with our dear people, sharing ideas and thoughts and feelings, some music and food. Playing games and sports, and hanging around and hugging and loving, singing and dancing, making art and sharing it... We can do that, and have for millennia, without any of the machines of modern life. Medicine can lengthen and enhance those meaningful interactions, make us feel better for longer... But even so, we don't need a phone or a car or an extra three feet of counterspace to get what we really want out of life. Let's consider that universal truth deeply, and let it wash over us and permeate and saturate us until we really get it now, before we have to reflect on it as we face our mortality in our death bed or when the fire is outrunning us. Let's take a day now and sit with that idea until it forces us to reprioritize our calendar, and tone it down so we can drift off in the end with no more regrets than we'd have if we died today.
