• ⇤
• ⇽
• ≡
• ⇾
• ⇥

what dies with us

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

I follow a Reddit thread on Gen-X. Someone posted, "What dies with us?" meaning what will leave the world when we do. I gave this some thought.

Going to different countries and actually have them be .. different. Dead bugs covering the windscreen and grill when you drove somewhere in the countryside. Fishing just about anywhere and there actually being fish (and not just a few stocked species). Stable seasons and climates. Affordable housing and stable careers (but these only existed for a relatively small population and only for about 30-100 years).

The memory of the grandparents and great-grandparents who - like their ancestors for time out of memory - were farmers or miners or something similar who made their own stuff and could repair it. I've has some surprising conversations with my Millennial cousins, they just don't remember those people and their ways (and they don't value them).

But also: being unable to connect with kindred spirits because your city of a million didn't have enough of them (e.g. your age). A lost book in the library system being the end of an investigation. Being isolated from other parts of the world by telecoms that were prohibitively expensive or just not there. Losing track of friends because your parents moved 70km away. Inflexible cultures and unchanging religions that stifled us for millennia. Nation-states are now dying, subsumed by a world order that demands continuity and collaboration: don't believe me, ask Putin if he'd take a do-over.

The generations just before us saw incremental change. We saw a tsunami. Many of us were born after the moon landing but we were the ones that made this poisoned but promising world. No one in the history of my family could do the job I do for a week.