Monday, March 18, 2013

My Limited Perception of Future

    I finished high school in 1957. I'm planning to write a letter to my classmates(all five of them.) I wrote them in 2007 which was fifty years after we finished. I was impressed with the feed back I got from them and they were amazed to hear from me. Our teacher and one class mate have died as well as two spouses. It just feels like a good time to write them again.

   One of the parts in my letter will be about us being young and our perception of our future. How did we ever get so old?

   It got me thinking about my limited ability to see the future.

   In 1957 did we see computers? Modern technology? Modern transportation? 

    In 1957 I was 17 years old. I could not envision being 21 years old. In fact I had trouble seeing the next week in my mind. I had trouble seeing what I wanted to do with my life . I just accidentally fell into teaching. I had no concept of settling down, being married or having a family. I couldn't dream of being 30! In one teacher inservice the topic must have been pensions. I remember being told certain figures and calculated that I could retire in 1995?  This was in 1958 ! 1995 seemed like forever. 

    So I have to stop and think about our perception of the future. I'll admit that mine's not very good. I can't seem to remotely visualize what the future will look like.   Now I'm sitting here and trying to think about being 80 if I make it. What changes will occur in the world in the next few years? What changes will happen to me by the time I reach 80? 

    In my head I feel myself as no different from 1957 when I was 17. Life goes on. We have experiences. We change. ..sometimes more than we think. I am and have been happy. Maybe that's why I didn't think too much about the future.

    I think I'm going to have fun writing another letter to my classmates!

    At this age I don't think I will ever get the hang of seeing the future. I'd have made a very poor fortune teller!

19 comments:

  1. made me smile. :) it occurred to me this weekend that i might live another 40 years. that seemed so foreign to me... i cannot imagine...

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    1. It's hard to imagine but it will happen.

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  2. It's kind of hard to see the future when you are wrapped up so completely in the present, Red. Your outlook on life is unique, and I'm glad you are able to share it with me in your blog. I am enriched by it. :-)

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    1. We are wrapped in the present but I don'rt think we have the soft ware inside to look ahead.

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  3. Very cool that you write to your old classmates and that you have received responses. Times change so very quickly these days that it's difficult to imagine what lies ahead.

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    1. I wasn't expecting the replies. that was a total surprise.

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  4. I agree Red. I know what I want to be like or envision the life or world I would like it to be,but have never been able to predict the way it one day the world would be like. Some of the poets and the kings of the past have envisioned the advance technologies etc and it amazes me to read such things.

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    1. Good point as there have been people who have made fairly accurate descriptions. Alvin Toffler in Future Shock has made some interesting descriptions. I really liked Future Shock and read it twice.

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  5. I remember when I was 19, and thinking that someone who was 30 was sooooooo old! Now, I'm 65, and 30 looks so young...but I barely remember it.

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    1. I know the feeling of both of these and then to look at my son who is now 43. It seems just like yesterday that we got him.

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  6. I really should plan my future better.
    As Spike Milligan said though.
    "If you don't make plans then nothing can go wrong."

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    1. I wish I could say wise things like Spike's quote.

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  7. Its really kinda neat, when i stop and think of all the changes since since my 17 birthday. I have travelled and studied in Europe, I taught computer classes to my company and travelled again to do this. I like inventing things and still do. I marvel at the changes thus far and hope to see a bunch more. I still keep in touch with 4 classmates and I love the fact that you write this letter to your classmates. Hand written letters are hard to come by today. My brother who lives in Windsor sent me a BDay card last week with olde letters I had written to him from England. I had great joy reading these thoughts from the past and realized how much I told my brother I loved him when I was away from Canada, just a young girl studying to be a nurse in England and touring the country at the same time. I had some adventures :), according to the letters. ha,ha Great Post Red.

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    1. You've had some very interesting experiences. Cool to see letters like this. In 1963 when I first went to Inuvik I wrote my little brother's gr 4 class. I saw that letter about 5 years ago. It was amazing to see what I said.
      So would you show these letters to your kids???

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  8. I too think in my head that high school was just yesterday. It is amazing to me to sit down and really look back on all that has occured since then. The old cliche 'time passes quickly' is truthful in every sense of the word. Having turned 60 this year I know there are way more years behind me than in front of me but I can't 'see' what those years will bring. We can't live in the past or the future. Life is the present, this time, this day and I just think I'd like to live those moments fully and get what I can out of them and maybe I'll make it to the Beatles "When I'm 64" moment that I thought unfathomable when I was 14.

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    1. Good song...When I'm 64. I think our idea of the past is not that accurate either. I think we do some creating. I like to talk with my brother. It's interesting the way we remember things.

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  9. Write the letter Red! Things can change so fast. I cannot fathom some of the latest technology..like how to write a blog from a phone. I don't even like phones:)

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  10. Let us hope that those changes yet to come are good ones. But perhaps it is a good job that none of us are very good fortune tellers just in case they aren't.

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  11. I think it's cook that you're writing to your old classmates.
    I really don't know where the time goes.

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