>From: "altamira" <altamira@ecpi.com>, Sun, 18 Jun 2000
>When I was younger, I used to like to go to a foreign country whose language
>I didn't know, taking with me only a couple of changes of clothes and enough
>money to buy food & lodging. I found that it was a good way to find, sort
>of, the essence of myself, apart from all my possessions and friends and my
>"place" in the society of which I was a part. But I was always glad to
>return home. The thought of being in a foreign time from which I couldn't
>return is a bit daunting.
I was also very adventurous when I was younger, striking out for parts
unknown with little or no trepidation. Many things seem to conspire to make
this sort of experience less common as we age - at least with the life cycle
we've come to expect with an unaugmented human life span. We "settle in" to
middle age, acquiring relationships, careers, status and possessions to which
we become increasingly attached.
If we are to make the most of extended life spans, I think we'll have to
develop methods to break down the natural conservatism that comes from
becoming "established" in a particular life-style, or ossification seem like
a likely result. Even before radical life extension becomes a reality, the
next twenty or thirty years will almost certainly bring changes that will
require more flexibility than the traditional "middle aged" person usually
has.
Especially for us "older" folks on the list, I think it's important to dwell
on and try to recapture or at least model the mind-set we had when we were
younger and more adventurous. We may well need the skills of those young
adventurers we once were.
Greg Burch <GBurch1@aol.com>----<gburch@lockeliddell.com>
Attorney ::: Vice President, Extropy Institute ::: Wilderness Guide
http://users.aol.com/gburch1 -or- http://members.aol.com/gburch1
ICQ # 61112550
"We never stop investigating. We are never satisfied that we know
enough to get by. Every question we answer leads on to another
question. This has become the greatest survival trick of our species."
-- Desmond Morris
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