Old age self-portrait
When I finally struck out on my own at age 28, I wanted to make my living working with seniors, so I took a class to become certified as a home health aide.
One of our assignments was to write a short essay on how we might see ourselves in our own old age. The following was how I envisioned my life and the world 40 years in the future - at age 68 - which has finally become my present day.
Click on image to enlarge
It's interesting to me how much of what I foresaw actually came true, at least with regard to myself; the third paragraph, especially. The bit about wife and family, though - I just made that up to make me sound less weird to my instructors. ;) I knew even then that would never come to pass, as I swore to myself at the age of 13 that I would neither marry nor have children.
I admit the last paragraph is a bit dark. I correctly predicted that legal voluntary euthanasia would become a reality (at least it has in some states and countries). It also suggests that someday I may choose to end my own life, which is something I believe is increasingly likely as the world becomes even more hostile and dystopian than I could ever have imagined. If things keep deteriorating at the rate they are now, there's no way I want to stick around for the hellscape of the Thirties and beyond. I might not even have a choice. By then, they may be rounding up Boomers for mandatory euthanasia. If ever a generation deserved to be exterminated, it's my own.
One of our assignments was to write a short essay on how we might see ourselves in our own old age. The following was how I envisioned my life and the world 40 years in the future - at age 68 - which has finally become my present day.
Click on image to enlarge
It's interesting to me how much of what I foresaw actually came true, at least with regard to myself; the third paragraph, especially. The bit about wife and family, though - I just made that up to make me sound less weird to my instructors. ;) I knew even then that would never come to pass, as I swore to myself at the age of 13 that I would neither marry nor have children.
I admit the last paragraph is a bit dark. I correctly predicted that legal voluntary euthanasia would become a reality (at least it has in some states and countries). It also suggests that someday I may choose to end my own life, which is something I believe is increasingly likely as the world becomes even more hostile and dystopian than I could ever have imagined. If things keep deteriorating at the rate they are now, there's no way I want to stick around for the hellscape of the Thirties and beyond. I might not even have a choice. By then, they may be rounding up Boomers for mandatory euthanasia. If ever a generation deserved to be exterminated, it's my own.