In six weeks, I will turn 81. I must say that most of my life has basically run along a straight line (sure, a few knots, some big, but not many) from when I was a child to now. And today’s world is similar to the world of the 1940s when I was growing up here in America, just more modern, with more people and more technology. But our country is still our country and the greater world, with all of its troubles, is not unlike the world we grew up in, which also had its share of troubles.

But the times, they are a changin’.

Over the last several years, we have seen and heard rumblings of CHANGE (yes, not “change”, but “CHANGE”). There was the COVID pandemic. It altered how we spend our daily lives, and not only the way we do things, but the way we think about illness and contagion and work and home. There has been a rupture in our way of thinking about our government – we elected a celebrity non-politician to the presidency, he turned out to be the most partisan president we ever had, he cared nothing for role modeling, or for decorum in the presidency, he refused to accept the results of the next presidential election, and he led an attempt to get the vice president to fail to approve the certification of electors by the states. All of a sudden, our government, and therefore our very country, seemed vulnerable, less secure. As a result, fear spread, and everything in this country became politicized, and some of our elected politicians turned out to be loony, and our government is in many ways not functioning (think House of Representatives). It is unclear when we will recover.

While this is going on, there has been an invasion of a sovereign European country, Ukraine, by another, Russia, leading to a war there has been going on for over a year with no end in sight. The strong opposition to Russia’s invasion from the American and European countries has kept Russia from winning the war, but now that alliance is tested. It feels like it might at some point break apart, leading who knows where. At the same time, China is threatening to invade Taiwan, and now Hamas, from Gaza, has led a massacre of almost 2000 Israeli citizens. Israel is preparing its strong response, and other Middle Eastern nations are threatening intervention on the side of Gaza. Big CHANGEs could be happening there sooner that we ever thought possible.

As if this is not enough, civil wars, autocratic governments and general anarchy in other parts of the world are leading to unprecedented numbers of refugees leaving their homes for greener pastures in countries that may not want them and may not have sufficient resources to care for them. This is compounded more and more by climate change, where we see parts of the world becoming increasingly uninhabitable, and which is bringing desertification and unbearable heat to parts of the world, rising seas and flooding world wide, stronger storms seemingly everywhere, drought conditions, uncontrollable fires and so forth, causing major loss of life and property.

But wait, there is more. How about never ending technological changes that are bringing a combination of threats and promises, including the threats being brought about by artificial intelligence? And then there is education that does not educate to today’s world, and unemployment and lack of sufficient candidates to fill jobs at the same time. And an increasing need for political correctness, with everyone over sensitive to normal human discourse. And guns and crime.

Yes, this is a time of CHANGE, with capital letters.

But again, I am about to turn 81. And I see CHANGE as a threat to the world I know. But if I could turn the number around and be 18, then what? Would I not notice CHANGE, and just see normality? Would I look at the threats I have listed and just see challenges and opportunities? I don’t know.

The old “Chinese curse” – May you live in interesting times! We are certainly doing that, and there is, for sure, one level on which I really appreciate it. The times are so interesting. There is so much to learn. I know so much more about our planet and the human condition than I did before. Yes, interesting times are a curse and, if they are not a blessing, they certainly keep your mind engaged.

I saw a Facebook post today that dealt with these changes in our society, but from a different perspective. It listed all these CHANGES and concluded that the “end days” are here, and the CHANGES are proof. Pretty soon, the post suggested, there would be the “rapture” followed by the coming of the “antichrist” and then…….nothing good at all.

I am not concerned about the antichrist (unless he’s elected to another term in 2024), but I look forward to the possibility of the rapture. The rapture might halt CHANGE in its tracks, or at least would alter its course. I wouldn’t miss those who would be raptured away, I don’t think, and wish them well. And they might leave a smaller and more manageable world behind. Just sayin’.

(Oh, Arthur, the last two paragraphs were not necessary at all. Don’t you think you should delete them? Until I got to these paragraphs, I was in agreement with everything you said. Sometimes, you just don’t know when to stop.)