I have completed the first seventy-five years of my life—three-quarters of a century. According to my plans, I will live another quarter of it.
I don’t know God’s plans, but if I live longer, I will make new plans.
The goal – having been born on March 21st at noon, i.e., at the beginning of the zodiacal year – is to achieve the exact symmetry of a life lived half in one century and half in the next. Which also happens to be two millennia. So say the stars.
I was born in a pre-industrial environment that rapidly transformed during the first twenty-five years of my life. Since that March 21st, time and again, I have also undergone several and repeated changes.
The world and I have collectively progressed along the same road in 1950. Techniques have been perfected, overall well-being has increased, health has improved, and the average lifespan has been extended.
Simultaneously, political and social institutions have declined unavoidably, the natural environment has been ravaged, and numerous uncertainties exist regarding the principles and values that ought to inspire and guide civilized life.
I would have been surprised if this hadn’t happened: the relative stability lasted even longer than anticipated.
The next quarter-century promises to be vibrant, confusing, and engaging. It may be dramatic for some or all of us, but it is certainly stimulating for those who are fascinated by change, question themselves, and want to understand what is happening.
My goal for the next quarter of a century is to revisit the beliefs I learned during my first twenty-five years.
I will maintain that progress does not halt but will follow a new, different, obscure, and uncertain path.
We always proceed in the dark and end up in the dark. A light shines within us, but only if we know how to turn it on and feed it.
We will need to search for a new road along an unmarked path. It will not be a tranquil old age, and it will be even less nostalgic. The upcoming changes will emerge through revolutions and temporary restorations. Once again, we find ourselves in the same situation as when we were children and adolescents, overwhelmed by an epochal change.
Depending on our fears and feelings, we can choose to be revolutionaries or conservatives. Both positions allow us to behave honestly.
As always, we must continue to fight for freedom and protect ourselves and others from oppression, clichés, and both physical and intellectual bullying.
Identifying new injustices will be challenging, and we should not dwell on the memory of the old ones or continue fighting intangible foes.
What is the most suitable verb tense to describe ourselves, history, politics, and life as a whole? It is not the past that never returns. It is not the present that always escapes and never stops. The uncertain future is both a dream and a hope. There is only one true verb tense in which to live without needing to comprehend the incomprehensible yet still act: the gerund, an indefinite time that doesn’t require a subject and through which life is expressed, reflecting the existence of each and every one of us.
