A Depresspirational Message!

It just occurred to me that we 20 and 30-something Western Civilizationites (for the record, I recognize that any second-year Arts student worth her salt could easily write at least an A- paper on the inherent ethno-centrism of the very notion of a "Western Civilization", but I don't care. Because those second year Arts students shouldn't even be reading this. Those blessed years are supposed to be filled with those second year Arts students roaming around their dorms doing keg stands and room-mates.) are living in the absolute best possible epoch, past or future?

We were born after the sphincter-clenching of the 50's, the kinda-fun-but-holy-shit-are-there-some-embarassing-photos-in-my-album 60's...and we haven't had to deal with any really traumatizing wars that requried sacrifice on the part of the general public... And the times before that whole WW2/WW1 business were even worse. You really can't argue that nowadays are preferable to the Before Times...before toilets, before anasthetic and before the notion that syphillis was anything but an inconvenience ("Edmond, I dare say you look even more handsome without a nose.")

So, there's now. Besides the various other pleasures that we live, watch and imbibe ever day, there's the Internet, and all the happiness it brings us...with instant access to friends, family and pornograpy. Especially pornography that doesn't involve our family. Or at least not anyone more closely related than second cousins. (Tisha Ryerson, call me!).

And I'm no cynic, but the future's looking a bit...well, let's just say it has a 90% chance of heavy cloud cover. We may figure this whole global warming thing out (Al Gore, call me!) but if we don't, things are going to go to shit...and not just cancelling the 2-man luge at the Winter Olympics shit, either.

Plus, then there's the rise of other global superpowers to worry about (China, call me!). This could work out very, very well for the Chinese, and that's great. But for us Western Civilizationites, it may well mean we'll become kind of...obsolete. Like the French.
They're still around. You can even go there for a romantic trip of sipping wine and riding Le Space Mountaine at Euro-Disney. But their culture, once mighty, has become obsolete. It's been on a steady decline since Asterix and Obelix were felled by botulism from an undercooked wild boar.

Anyhow, I'm not saying life is going to suck in the future for Western Civilizationites. I'm just saying it's going to suck a bit worse than it does now.

And because it sucked worse in the past...and it's going to suck worse in the future (precluding a sudden desire on our parts to choose Segways over cars, trucks, SUVs and flying in planes for business and travel) that means just one thing:
All of us lucky enough to be 20 or 30-somethings right now are basically living in the best possible epoch in all of Western Civilization's history or future. The. Best. Ever.

And yet, still I complained about the breakfast sandwich I had this morning. (Undercooked bacon.)