For the Future Generations

Behaving in such a way as to prepare and preserve the future for the next generations seems like a forgotten concept. Duty and sacrifice are not the norm in our culture. I think it was in our history, or we wouldn’t have had a Revolutionary War. Men of renown pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to ensure a free nation.

My Generation

I was a child in the late 60s and 70s. It was a tumultuous time for many, maybe even most people. The draft was a big impact on me. My father was a draft dodger. He was gone for months, but unlike the servicemen, he sculked around when he was home. He was had no sense of duty to anyone. Some men came back injured, mentally and or physically, but they had done their duty. Progressive college professors turned the youth against them after a while and there was a shame in war. I don’t advocate for war and I know that the wars of that time were wrought with injustice, as is the case always.

During that same period in our history birth control and abortion were not prosecuted and by 1973 were no longer illegal. The dramatic shift in duty and responsibility had opened Pandora’s Box. We can never go back. Millions upon millions of women were availing themselves of the developing pharmaceutical boon. There were all sorts of medical advances to be tested on American women. Many women were taking drugs for all sorts of ailments with little research, little tracking, and little follow-up.

The current knowledge about epigenetics indicates that we are now impacted by the massive explosion of drugs, some good and some bad, that our foremothers took, both pregnant and not. Another tremendous impact of big pharma is that the change in focus from duty to future generations to a focus on what an individual wanted at the moment.

This Generation

The cultural shift from duty to future generations to ‘me, myself, and I’ is strikingly illuminated in current society. From ipods and iphones to selfies and snowflakes.

I know, I was totally lost, without a clue of how my behavior would impact the future generations in my own family. Never mind the greater impact of how the choices I made would impact others around me into the future. I knew nothing of duty and honor as a kid. So, is it lost? Sadly, for many millions, it seems to be.

A generation of people grew up with an abdication of responsibility all around them, even if their family maintained a code of honor. No one came through unscathed. The impact is irreversible.

We see flippant expulsion of children from the safety of the womb, and the abandoning or abuse of born children. Then, the storage and wasting of our elderly, the abhorrence of the disabled, disenfranchised, and disadvantaged has brought the US to a place so scary, that a generalized undercurrent of fear and anger is overwhelmingly pervasive.

Future Generations

There is a remnant. There are still people who know honor, dignity, and Love. Find them and you’ll find life worth living.

I made a comment about real victims deserving justice and I realized the problem is that justice is seen as a subjective term today. The rule of law has lost all credibility for ensuring justice. Laws that allow injustice made by a generation devoid of compassion have stolen justice from our nation. All we can do is try to establish just practices in our own sphere of influence now.

Let’s be the change. Let’s be respectful, treat all people with dignity, take care of those entrusted to us, reach out in love, preserve the earth, learn what is good, and teach others about goodness and mercy for future generations.