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Thinking Seventh Generation
By C. Keil, Lakeville
A generation is about 20 years, so seven generations into the future would be 140 years from now. How will life be 140 years from now in the Northwest Corner?
Present trends continuing—runaway militarism, runaway warming, runaway ozone depletion, runaway pride, growth, greed—I suspect that radiation levels will be very high in 2140 after the nuclear meltdowns and storage failures. The familiar birds and trees and pets and domesticated animals will almost all be gone. Kudzu and a few other tropical vines will thrive, but that's about it. Extraordinary mutation rates will gradually generate new creatures that try to adapt, but most won't tolerate the heat and will fail.
In 2140, a few of us cloned humans with amazingly robust immune systems will be living in lead-lined buildings and containment areas with elaborate machinery for purifying water and keeping a few cave-grown food staples cool and unpoisoned. The same lead that protects us from radiation must be removed from our bloodstreams every so often. Quite a bit of technology is devoted to cleansing each of us, keeping the chemical pollution levels down, and preventing the rapidly evolving viruses and bacteria from overcoming our robust immune systems. In the few minutes of leisure that we clones have each day, we read a magazine called Survival of the Fittest. This is the only publication that survives. And TV is nothing but reruns of those survival shows from the end of the 20th century when people still had fun competing with each other in the great outdoors. Everyone prays for the return of the ozone layer and global cooling. We are tired of living scared, indoors, with too much heat and dark.
Another way to think about the seventh generation assumes that 2002 was the year of consciousness transformation and spirituality running wild. That was the year that more and more people began to think about their grandchildren's grandchildren (that makes six generations) and their children (makes seven). In fact, 2002 was the year that people focused all of their attention on children, decided to be more like children themselves: to sing and dance at the same time and more of the time; to ask simple questions and insist upon answers in the form of believable stories. Families joined together in drum circles. Full moon ceremonies became a big deal. Being energetic in the outdoors became a priority; TVs were turned off, detoxed and pitched out.
In 2002 everyone turned to poetry, making pictures, weaving, gardening, tree planting; all the "hobbies" became full-time seasonal work and the professions withered. As the poets became a voting majority and energy an "eternal delight," they decided to stop burning fossil fuels because oil has many, many more important uses. (Coal and natural gas and all the minerals will still be needed 20,000 years from now, and 2 million years from now as well.) The slogans "We don't all need to be here at the same time," and "Take it easy," and "Live simply that others may simply live" finally caught on. Bio-engineering was put on permanent hold in favor of Life.
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