We Get to Be Here During the Big Change
Our descendants will look back to our time with two kinds of wonder. (They will come and ask us about it, if we solve the immortality question fast enough.) First, they will wonder that we could endure the difficulty of our lives. They will be amazed at our heroism, that we managed to function so well under the tremendous burden of our distress, that we managed to get re-emergence going against this waterfall of restimulated distress that rained upon us all our lives.
The other wonder will be kind of an envious one. They will look back wistfully and think, “Oh, to have been Great Grandma, who lived in that period when the sun finally came up, when humanity finally found itself.” They will think of us as the most fortunate of beings in that sense, that we got to be there when things changed. They will enjoy all the goodness, but they will, I’m sure, think that they miss a certain vividness from the contrast. They will think back to us with honor and respect, but also with envy.
This is our opportunity. We get to be here during the big change. We get to take part in it. Our descendants will tell their grandchildren with great pride, “Your ancestors did something.” Pride in family is not a negative thing. It’s been misused, but it is not a negative thing.
Reality is good. The fact that the distress happened—that the great, grey blanket covered us for these two or three million years or whatever time we have been human—apparently was inevitable. Our best thinking so far is that the past was inevitable. It is the same as saying that it happened. We’ve understood that. So it will turn out to have had some purpose, some usefulness, in spite of the destruction of life that it seems we could mourn forever if we look at it now, while it is taking place.
From pages 6 to 7 of “The Totally Benign Reality” in The Benign Reality
(Present Time 202, January 2021)