| Rick's January Tirade
A Letter to the Future
Dear Reader,
I send you greetings from the end of my native
era. As I write this, we've begun the final day of the millennium
that gave birth to Bach, Beethoven and bubble wrap. When midnight
next looms over the Pacific, the year 2000 will have started its
triumphal march across the planet. Its conquest culminates exactly
24 hours later, as predictably and efficiently as the Nazi invasion
of Poland.
What you've found is a message in a bottle set
adrift from a distant shore. Whether you choose to read it or toss
it back into the sea is your decision. But I'd like to think your
curiosity will get the better of you.
We're primitive folk by your standards. In our
time we still suffer from all manner of incurable diseases
afflicting the innards, mind and sundry other organs. Our grammar
and logic would shame a golden retriever in your era. We spend most
of our lives struggling at jobs that cook our nervous systems over
medium-high heat. No matter what we're doing at the moment, the
majority of us would rather be doing something else. The person who
gains a measure of control over his life is regarded as a curiosity
and a sage; our culture entitles such characters to write
bestselling self-help books.
In our time we still delight in killing healthy
animals and trees, and occasionally each other. We make war and
hamburgers with equal enthusiasm. We venerate celebrities, fashions,
money and power, but not our own souls; we willingly rent them to
the highest bidder. We seem to want more sex than we get, and we
generally get less than we talk about. (We talk about it endlessly.)
We sniffle pathetically when we catch cold and keel over alarmingly
when our arteries clog. You'd probably be embarrassed to be seen
with us; we're your lower-middle class relatives with the plastic
lawn ornaments.
You'll have to pardon our oafishness. You've
caught us at an awkward age of transition from primate to
cybercreature. Electronic screens have replaced the glowing hearths
of our ancestors, but we still contend daily with our prehistoric
bodies and brains.
Even so, you have to admit we made some startling
progress during a millennium that began with bands of Vikings
terrorizing misty northern coasts. Today our terrorists sneak aboard
state-of-the-art aircraft carrying concealed plastic bombs, and the
Vikings are a professional football team composed predominantly of
African-Americans. During that span of a thousand years we produced
Gothic architecture, "Don Quixote," calculus, the
guillotine, postage stamps, baseball, blimps and electronic greeting
cards. We snatched the Americas from their original occupants and
even sent a few of our brethren to the moon -- though we never got
around to building a deluxe resort hotel and casino there. Most
impressively, we did it all on our own -- without the assistance of
snooty cyborgs or implanted brain chips.
I'd be curious to know what you remember about us.
Do you still honor George Washington, for example, or does Rodney
Dangerfield get more respect? Which of our songs, books, films,
buildings, foods and mail-order catalogs do you still cherish? Do
you take your children to gaze upon the noble ruins of Disney World?
Do your scholars still write annotated treatises on the works of
Will Shakespeare -- or do they prefer to deconstruct Will Smith? Are
you acquainted with the names of Chaucer, Rabelais, Voltaire,
Dickens, Dostoyevsky, Rick Bayan and Dr. Seuss? Or have your own
infinitely inventive cyberauthors relegated all our books to the
remainder tables of oblivion? When you watch our old movies and home
videos, do you chuckle at our archaic accents and borderline
Neanderthal demeanor? Do your comedians still do impressions of Ed
Sullivan? Can you hum a few bars of "Jingle Bells" and
"I Am the Walrus"? Do the words "A penny saved is a
penny earned" mean anything to you?
How I'd love to sit down with you and guide you
through our millennium, introduce you to our notable personalities,
recount the words of the wise and the deeds of the reckless. If you
caught me in a mirthful mood, I might tell you how the Mongols
invented the tuning fork... how George M. Cohan discovered the
Northwest Passage... how the Internet was developed by a colony of
Swiss Anabaptists. You'd nod appreciatively and ask me to tell you
more.
But mainly I'd be curious about your own world. Do
you still have nations and nationalities? Did Finland ever become a
major power? Have you entirely dispensed with God and Jesus, or do
you still trot them out for special holidays whose origins you've
forgotten? Do you still couple with other humans, or do you prefer
the neater intimacies of Woody Allen's orgasmatron? Do you raise
your own children, and if so, do they still ignore you? Do you have
to work for a living, or does everyone simply trade technology
stocks? Has the Dow topped a billion yet? Do your computers still
give you error messages that immediately quadruple your risk of
stroke? Does the preserved head of Bill Gates smile enigmatically
from its laboratory jar, and does it still dictate corporate policy
at Microsoft?
How goes the planet? I wonder if the winters are
balmy in Saskatoon and Novosibirsk... if melting icecaps have turned
your port cities into a thousand Venices... if you still wake up to
the warbling of birds on bright spring mornings, or if you have to
settle for tinny electronic simulations from your computer console.
Does the lion's roar still break the stillness of an African night,
or is that just the sound of traffic humming down the Central
Tanzanian Expressway? Can you rest upon a bank of wild violets in
the shade of a willow tree, or would exposure to fresh air broil
your lungs?
No doubt you've scored high marks in the realm of
science and technology, as future generations always do. After all,
you've been able to stand on our shoulders and peer over the garden
wall. What kind of brave new world have you inherited, and how have
you embellished it?
I'd guess you've extended your lifespans to the
point that our prune-skinned centenarians seem like mere saplings to
you. You'd find it hard to believe that when Sarah Knauss left us
just yesterday at the age of 119, she was recognized as the oldest
human being on the planet. In your time 119-year-olds are probably
running marathons and hosting their own talk shows, if not hanging
out with disreputable motorcycle gangs.
What other wonders have your scientists wrought?
Has genetic engineering produced grapes the size of basketballs or
gerbils that speak Portuguese? What about "designer"
babies with aptitudes for biophysics, golf or investment banking?
Have you succeeded in cloning Napoleon Bonaparte, or at least Calvin
Coolidge? Can you preserve the contents of your mind after your body
has frittered away? Have you made contact with extraterrestrial
life, and is it stranger than Michael Jackson? Can you swallow a
pill to memorize the Encyclopaedia Britannica? Or do you leave most
of the thinking to the humanoid machines that have doubtless
surpassed five hundred Einsteins in cognitive brilliance? Do those
synthetic creatures continue to serve you, or have they been
promoted to management?
I'm as full of questions as a five-year old, but
you're probably wondering if I have any answers. I'll do the best I
can, given my limited cranial capacity.
Despite your dazzling accomplishments, I'd be
surprised if you didn't suffer from the same eternal woes that have
plagued us as a species from day one: greed, factionalism,
fanaticism, violence, lust for status, cruelty toward our inferiors,
resentment of our superiors, loneliness, alienation, fear of death,
fear of change, fear of everything strange. It doesn't make a pretty
picture, but it makes a human one. No matter how thoroughly you're
connected to your technology, you can't suppress the inner ape.
That's not entirely a bad thing. Savor the
innocence and fun of the unprogrammed life, and don't let the
machines control the meanderings of your mind. Even if it means failing
now and then. Even if it means feeling isolated from the herd.
Better to be merry some of the time, and miserable some of the time,
than to be merely well-adjusted all of the time. Dare to experience
rich and ancient emotions like longing and the gnashing of teeth.
Lose control of your faculties for a few hours. Forget about placing
your firstborn in a prestigious nursery school. Life is more than
the procurement of advantages for yourself and your kin.
Don't let your world be reduced to bits of
information that need processing. Ignore your corporate mission
statement; you require texture, color, sights, tastes, smells, and
whatever new senses you've developed by now. Climb a tree. Dance a
tango. Eat the whole enchilada. Mingle with live bodies and meet
mavericks like yourself.
Above all, don't forget your primitive ancestors.
Make friends with us. Find a photograph of Lincoln and look him in
the eye; let yourself be moved by the souls of the dead, who often
know more than the living. And if you have access to a time machine,
pay us a visit. We'd love to see how you're doing, and whether
you've found a cure for baldness. Any stock tips would also be
appreciated.
Here's the complete archive of Rick Bayan's immortal tirades for your reading pleasure:
December 2002 — Hello, I Must Be Going
November 2002 — A Raving Moderate
August 2002 — Is Western Civilization Worth Saving?
July 2002 — To Scam or Be Scammed
June 2002 — I Read the News Today, Oh Boy
May 2002 — Speechophobia
April 2002 — Fanatics on Parade
March 2002 — The Prestige Gap: A Lament
February 2002 — On Becoming a Dullard
January 2002 — Art for Slackers
December 2001 — An Unsolicited Christmas Card
November 2001 — A Tale of Two Tribes
October 2001 — On the Fallen Towers
August 2001 — Why Do We Bother?
June 2001 — Notes from a Doomed Planet
May 2001 — The Museum of Discarded Names
April 2001 — Indecision
March 2001 — A Slight Case of Insanity
February 2001 — Letter to a Conscientious Critic
January 2001 — The Cynic's Inaugural Address
December 2000 — The 50th Tirade
November 2000 — Travel Advisory
October 2000 — Beyond Work
September 2000 — More Work
August 2000 — Work
July 2000 — The Doves' Nest
June 2000 — Great Affectations
May 2000 — Tale of a Virtual Village
April 2000 — The World Is My Obstacle Course
March 2000 — A Living Heck
February 2000 — On the Treachery
of Time
January 2000 — A Letter to the
Future
December 99 — Rare Bird
November 99 — Not Just Another
Obscure Ethnic Group
October 99 — Extinction Reconsidered
September 99 — Good Life, Bad
Life, Better Life
August 99 — Household Relics:
An Elegy
July 99 — A Meditation on Profanity
June 99 — In Praise of Sloth
May 99 — A Bug's Death
April 99 — Obligations!
March 99 — The Courage to Be Ordinary
February 99 — A Grave Story
January 99 — What's Left for
Men?
December 98 — On the Uses of
Friends
November 98 — A Cynic's Thanksgiving
October 98 — Grand Illusions
September 98 — Filth
August 98 — Will the Real God
Please Stand Up?
July 98 — Adventures in Downsizing
June 98 — Lady Longevity
May 98 — Uniquely Human, Uniquely
Clueless
April 98 — The Mathematics of Excess
March 98 — Humbuggery
February 98 — Love and the Single
Cynic
January 98 — By the Sweat of
Your Brow
December 97 — Is Suffering Unfashionable?
November 97 — The Tao of Housekeeping
October 97 — The Sensory Deprivation
Blues
September 97 — Down with Natural
Selection!
August 97 — Noise
July 97 — On Eating Our Fellow Creatures
June 97 — Trouble in Book-Land
May 97 — Interview with an Unemployable
Man
April 97 — The Cynic's Dream
March 97 — Inequalities
February 97 — Flesh and Mortality
January 97 — How to Be a Success
December 96 — Why I Can't Hate
Christmas
November 96 — How I Became a Cynic
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