There seems to be a growing tendency in seeing the past as better than the present and the expected future. This is not a good state of affairs, not for the individual and certainly not for the country.
Elon Musk’s X is like a black hole. One can go to X and simply be sucked in for endless hours of posts, from beautiful views all over the world to humorous takes on today’s politics. One thing I have noticed is that there are many people who put up pictures of strange items and claim that only someone of a certain age would be able to identify them. I am happy that I am not so old as to know everything shown, but yes there are many old TV shows or formerly common household items that I can say that I still remember from my youth in suburban Chicago.
One sees in polls and one gets the feeling from many users on X that life was better in the past. It is hard to accurately compare periods, and certainly nobody goes to the hospital and asks for the gallbladder treatment of 1947. But as many have noted, life was different say back in the 1970’s and 1980’s, when I grew up. Yes, we used to jump on our bikes and go out to the lake or the local park to play baseball—rather than sit around playing endlessly with smartphones. One could go to a ballgame with money earned mowing lawns and not have to take out a bank loan as needed today. There were no issues of boys as boys and girls as girls. No guy would have seriously thought about competing in the girls’ races and not expect universal ridicule from friends and family. If the football team won the state title, the quarterback could anticipate the trees around his house decorated with toilet paper (TP). The quality of TV and music seemed better then. And that’s a problem.
One of man’s traits is the expectation of a better future. We devote huge amounts of effort and money to progress. Look at the size of a B-52 engine and then look at the new GE9X planned for the Boeing 777X. They both serve the same function and look similar. But decades of investment, research and development allowed going from the relatively small 1960’s era jet engine to its modern efficient and huge equivalent. The B-52 requires 8 engines to fly. The massive 777X will get by with 2.
But what happens when people do not expect the future to be better? They essentially play out their self-fulfilling prophecy. They won’t make the effort to look for a better future and everything they see around them will confirm their worst fears. Look at the US today. More crime. An overrun border. Inflation not at 2.3% but at 30% or 50% when comparing prices to life before Covid. A US that gets pushed around by our enemies. Everything we see seems to be worse than it once was. And when people believe that to be true then they simply act as if the trend will continue forever. They will reduce their expectations and give up on hope. Not the Obama hopey-dopey. But real hope. Hope that their children and grandchildren will have a better life than they had. Hope that the US will be more unified and wealthier than in the past. Is present-day San Francisco with homeless and drug addicts living on the expensive streets better than during the days of the 1970’s TV show The Streets of San Francisco when there were no such things?
I often—wrongly--pity professional athletes. They throw their lives into their sports and at age 35 they are finished. Some are broke, while others have succeeded in amassing a nice fortune. But the glory days of victories and adoring fans are behind them. The smart and fortunate ones plan for the day after and set themselves and their families up with new lives with new opportunities. Sure, they will never again have a standing ovation from 50,000 delirious fans, but their new lumber company turned a profit in its second year. One always has to look forward to tomorrow being better than today was. To feel that one has hit his zenith and is now just biding his time until the undertaker arrives is not living but just dying with a pulse.
One thing that Donald Trump always offers whenever he speaks is a feeling that the US can once again be a country with a bright future. Those on the left live like Paul Ehrlich’s 1969 Population Bomb which predicted overpopulation and an end to natural resources. It was wrong on every word written other than the name of the author. But that is how they live. Trump says that the future is going to be amazing for the US and its citizens. Whatever good we’ve had, there is still better coming. That is how Americans have always lived, from Manifest Destiny forward. The baby boom was based on Americans after World War 2 believing that there was a bright future for the US. The idea of the Space Shuttle was that we would be going to space on a weekly basis. It did not pan out then but that was the optimism of the period. Nuclear-powered electricity would be “too cheap to meter”.
I believe that the US and its citizens have a great future ahead. As the saying goes, it’s darkest just before the dawn. Both the country and its individuals must believe that tomorrow will still be better than today was. Since my parents passed away, we have not made it back to the US. I hear my family saying how much they miss Lake Tahoe, Lake Havasu, San Diego, the Grand Canyon, etc. I am glad that we enjoyed so many vacations but I will do my best to make sure that the best trips are still to come. America’s future will be bright. Believing the same is the first step to it becoming a reality.