Wishes for My Grandson                                                         [corrected version]                                    

I am a new grandfather. Our grandson was born two week ago; he’s our first grandchild. We started our family a bit late; our children have followed the same pattern.  I have classmates with grandchildren who will graduate this year from high school. Perhaps being older makes me more reflective. What are my hopes for the little guy? More than hopes—projections, anticipations, fears. His birth got me thinking about how caught up most of us are in our own time and space.  If he lives to 100, to the year 2113, what will life throw at him?

The range of thoughts and emotions, not even to mention the spectrum of possibilities, is overwhelming. Will he be a free citizen in a peaceful nation, in a world perhaps powered by fusion, a world in harmony with nature, all in a remarkable solar system so astounding, we, today, can barely conceive of the beauty? Or will he need to fight against the tyranny and turmoil of a new dark age?

What might he witness? Will plagues and pestilence be completely eradicated, or will new horrors visit the earth?  Will he fry due to global warming or freeze in a new Ice Age? Will a thermonuclear war reduce life to ashes, or electro-magnetic blasts from the sun push it back to the 17^th century? What of his children? His grandchildren? They may well live to the cusp of the 23d century!

 Of course I wish for him all the beauty, splendor and meaningful personal fulfillment life can possibly hold. May your life, Dearest Grandson, be a long journey of wonderment and passion, of knowledge and achievement.

Ahh… but I’m pretty old. I know that wishes do not come true simply because of the act of wishing. Let others wish you happiness and success. I choose to focus upon your learning, your joy in learning and in accomplishment.  What will you, you brand new human being with unlimited potential, need to know; who do you need to become; how will you need to behave for all the best to come about for you? And this goes, too, for all the children born and to be born in 2013? What can you, and will you, make of the world in your time?

Story, self-image, world view and behavior

My dear grandson, the stories that you learn will affect your beliefs about yourself, your community, your country, your world. Stories will build your self-image and your world view, and you, like everyone, will tend to behave in ways consistent with your self-image and world view. That’s why it is important to learn honest and accurate stories, inspiring stories, stories neither infected with the prejudices of political correctness or older prejudices built upon ignorance.

These thoughts, hopes, projections are for your life, not for this moment in time. Don’t grow up too quickly. For me, thinking like this is kind of neat. As a granddad one isn’t necessarily concerned about the immediacies of food, shelter and education. That’s his folk’s department. As a grandparent one has the luxury of wider contemplations and projections. So…

Dear Grandson,  I hope you will become an explorer, an independent thinker, a man who makes his own way—much as has your father, your great grandfathers and great great grandfathers—exploring from the tops of mountains to the depths of the seas, exploring sub-atomic structure to distant galaxies, exploring social interactions and your own innermost thoughts. Be excited! Be elated! Like Dr. Seuss I think, “Oh the thinks you can think, if only you try.”

There will be times of turmoil and personal challenges; times when obstacles are thrown in your path simply because you live on a planet and amongst people with a continuum of ethics from pristine to pathetic to those who with no ethics at all.  Learn the concepts of honesty and integrity. Learn to preserve. Snags and woe come into every life. How you handle them is far more important than whether they happen. Become strong, resilient. Be less concerned with how others define you, but be aware of how you define yourself--and why you do so… (this is mindfulness).

Some small and some big things I hope you learn

Learn to interrupt negative patterns in your own behavior; learn to take massive action and to focus on positive outcomes.

Learn something about your ancestry, about the strong men and women of your family, about their aspirations, adventures and achievements, about their life journeys from the Old World to the New. Know that amongst those who came before were an advisor to kings, a founder of a significant bank, soldiers, sailors and Marines, elementary school teachers and college professors. Learn about the founding of our nation; about the forefathers who began The American Experiment; about the principals in which they believed.  Not just the What, but also the Why.

If technology continues expands at a tenth the rate it has expanded in the past three decades (your father’s life to this point), and if the intrusiveness of “noise” continues to rise from every sector, how will you protect yourself from false thoughts foist into your every waking (and perhaps sleeping) minute? There will always be people who want to control you, to control all others in their pursuit of wealth or power. Learn to be vigilant, to protect yourself and others from megalomaniacs. Keep things in perspective. I’m attempting to convey here more than, “Don’t let one bad pitch spoil your ballgame.” It’s more serious than that. It is a matter of not allowing an abuse in the pursuit of an ideal to tarnish that ideal

I’ve written this to many others, so certainly I am going to write it to you. The abuse of power in the pursuit of freedom is not justification for the abandonment of that pursuit; nor is the abuse of a freedom by a few justification for the abandonment of that freedom by the many. The abandonment of the pursuit and defense of freedom, integrity and human rights eventually leads to tyranny, atrocities and holocausts.  This seems to be the history of our species.  Learn and understand that hope always accompanies the pursuit and defense of freedom; that under tyranny all hope is destroyed.

What of God? Will the concept of God survive the next hundred years?  Is there necessarily a conflict between the concept of God and the theories of science? The writings from the High Renaissance and from our founding fathers, at least to me, are as lucid as most contemporary thought. In the spring of 1966, during of my first year at college, I read John Adams’ essay on Deism. The reading was part of an English course, not part of the mandatory religion courses.  It might have been part of US History, for the founding fathers, and Adams in particular, were leery of not just the tyranny of kings but also the human dictates of religious leaders. This is the basis for the separation of church and state in America. The essay hit home with me. Many of the point he made, I had been arguing since I was 13. There is great freedom in being a Deist. The main tenet is: I believe in God. Exactly what God is, Deism does not define. It does not license or deny the beliefs of others (i.e., it avoids the lunacy of rabid atheists and fanatical zealots). It accepts that there are powers and forces at work which are much greater, and far beyond, mankind’s capacity in time, space and force. It asks, “How can I not believe in something much greater than me/us?” It leads one outside of oneself. God for some may be a traditional view; for others the left-hand quark and the Higgs boson; he/she/it may be the life force in a blade of grass; or the tectonic plates crashing together and forcing the earth’s crust to ripple into Rockies and Alps and Himalayas. God may be the motion of the stars and galaxies and structures beyond the eyes of Hubble; and at the same time the forces behind those motions, and the structures themselves. Sometimes you may wish to contemplate the life of a rock or a mountain. They’re on a different timeframe than you and me, but to not realize they have a life force is to miss the beauty and complexity of all existence. Respect life. In some form I hope you will keep God in yours.

And in some form make a commitment to something outside of yourself. That is the key to happiness. Not just to something… but to something significant. And in your private life, commit to someone significant.

More random thoughts (I could go on for days, weeks—so excited that you are here)

Your children: If, in 30 years, you have a son or daughter, that will bring us to 2043. Who will be raising the children born at mid-century? Will there still be families? Will there be collectives? Will the powers of the time ‘adopt’ all children and indoctrinate them into The Borg? Will you be free to raise them how you deem best?

 I rather like this paraphrase of Ann Landers: It is not what you do for your children but what you teach them to do for themselves that will determine their success as human beings. How do children learn to do for themselves? My belief is that young children learn by emulating the behaviors of those who are important in their lives. The pattern changes as children become older, and again as they enter adulthood--but only by degree. Live the life you wish others to emulate. This is the most important tenet of parenthood.  It is also the most important quality of a true leader. There’s a corollary: Follow only those who exhibit the behaviors you believe worthy of emulating.

Numbers--projecting in two directions: 1913 and 2113. Your great grandmother, my mother, was born 100 years before you. When you reach your 100th year, it will be 2113. Two of your great grandfather lived to eighty eight years. . Eighty eight years previous to my birth slavery was active in America; the east and west coasts were yet to be linked by any significant transportation, much sea travel was still by sail. Eighty eight years from your birth will mankind have colonies on Mars? Will fusion or wave energy be abundant and so cheap as to allow … hmmm, allow what? Or will mankind rip itself apart and fall back into a dark age where cumulative knowledge is lost and people eke a living from damaged soils and polluted waters. What do you need to know to survive?

Oh… all this seriousness cast upon one who is not yet eight pounds! Shame on me!  Dear Grandson, if you ever read this, know I hope you do not grow up too quickly. Be a child. Be a boy. Have a first love. Experience it all. Bask in your life. And when it is time, become a man. I believe it was the Spanish philosopher Miguel de Unamuno who said, “There is one thing sadder than growing old, and that is to go on being a child.”

 Everything in its time

And finally, my beautiful grandson, I wish you a long and meaningful life. Live it to its fullest. Give it your all, for whatever you give to life, it will be returned to you manifold.