I am borrowing the idea of vapor trails from someone who, in my opinion, has written some of the best poetry in the 20th century. The idea is that people in the past had been through many hardships to create the history we know and the present we experience. History books don't recount the deeds of the vast majority of these folks. Most of their future progeny will not know of them either. All that is left of most of these people is the vapor trail of their flight through physical life.
We have many things in our beings that drive us to do the things that we do. We need to survive and thus we need to compete for what seems to be limited resources. Emotions erupt from this need to survive: greed, lust, jealousy, and hate on one side. Amazingly, love and altruism are also needed to complete the whole being. As we age, we realize that the latter of these two groups becomes the most important part of our legacy on this planet. Our vapor trail has already taken it's shape by this point, however. Some people never do learn the truth that their physical hoardings are not the important legacy that they leave their families.
What kind of vapor trail will you leave?
What new vapor trails are being created for future generations.Old vapor trails, perseverance, accountability, self-reliance, thrifty and provided a legacy for their families.
ReplyDeleteNew Vapor trails. 40% rely on some sort of welfare. 50% pay no Federal income taxes. No personal accountability (or very limited) sense of entitlement. Reverse mortgages, no familial legacies.
You talk about limited resources, they used to be available through hard work. In the future, hard work won't guarantee those limited resources.
Or in other words, those who work the hardest will be burdened with sky high taxes to support those who refuse to work.
DeleteInstead of vapor trails it seems you summoned up broken records.
Deletegottaloveit,
DeleteDenmark.
Jean
Hi everyone. Sorry for the absence. My computer was hacked and encrypted by some unpleasant people trying to skim banking information and various passwords. End result was that my computer was illegally encrypted throughout the entire system. A local technician managed to save 5 years work and emails before reloading the system. I have never backed up but shall do so from now on. The scammers got nothing of value and I lost nothing but did gain experience; the $100 fee to fix the thing was money well spent.
ReplyDeleteAs for this topic. I guess like me, its author is getting a bit long in the tooth. This is the kind of thinking we do when we can see the end of the road with the hill getting steeper by the day.
I think we look back at happier times when we had something to aim for; perhaps a better salary, a more secure retirement plan or some other materialistic wish.
We have now passed the stage of acquisition, if we were lucky we have enough to see us through and leave the kids comfortable. I personally believe if we do this we can expect no condemnation, other than the way we condemn ourselves for excessive drive to acquire more and more during our working lives. Of course, the kids should be able to look after themselves so perhaps as a final statement we bequeath to them the results of our greed so that they can carry the burden of guilt.