Reflection

‘Back in my day, people used to blow themselves up. Everyday you would hear of this happening somewhere in the world. It was normal to me.’

This is the conversation I hope to be having with my grand-kids in the year 2059. Not that I take pride in this, more that it will be something future generations will have to find in history books and not witness first hand.

I can remember the horror when my grandparents told me of the relaxed health and safety rules in the workplace. Of actually being in a war. Of course I would much prefer to be alive today then in any other period of history, not that we are faultless by any means. I can understand a little better why stupid shut happened way back when.* Most of the time they didn’t know any better. The crazy superstitions and countless gods, that was their best attempts to gain an understanding. They didn’t have a great deal of scientific research to delve into, there was no ‘option B’ to choose from. Today there is and yet we still find ourselves being easily led by myths and sweet nothings. 

*I’m talking hundreds of years, not my grandparents era.

Suicide bombings a should have ceased 500 years ago. The fact that I can pick up my smart phone, capable of receiving signals from space, only to read about another beheading or stoning blows my mind. It’s like we are trapped between ages.

My hope is that the future will not replicate the past. I worry that I won’t be able to shock my kids with such a story. That the story won’t be something learned by future generations but compared to. Will futuristic weapons be used to kill infidels? Will threatening messages appear anywhere via hologram? If the scripture won’t change, what hope do I have that the fundamentalists will?