The Family Rock

Life is strange. As you go through life it seems we all have all these different roles we have to play at every point. Sometimes, we are good at a particular role and we don't want that particular role to ever end. But it always does (or almost always). Like for example, at age 15 I decided I wanted to be a father and of all the careers in my life I have found it the most rewarding but at times also the most challenging. So, as we move forward through life we are needed by life in different ways to be different things and people to different people and groups. And it is hard to give up one role for another like I mentioned before many times just for the sake of efficiency and passing the torch to a younger generation rather than any other good reason.

And as we go further and further in life it seems to get even stranger. For example, I knew many people that were dying in their 20s, 30s and 40s while I was growing up in my teens during the 1960s and my mostly 20s during the 1970s. But now in my age group here in 2012 (63) around 54% of the people I grew up with (in the U.S) are still alive (if they lived to be 21 first). But if I take the same group and take it back to birth only 5% of the men my age are still alive because so many died between birth and age 21(which is when most people die from accident, injury or disease).

So now, even though most people passed on before 60 years of age in 1950, in 2012 over half of everyone my age is still alive here at age 63 (if they lived first to be 21). So now, my generation and everyone following have to decide what kind of precedent we are going to set for everyone coming up behind us. So, I guess the more gracefully we move on into our 70s, 80s, 90s and beyond that the more the human race will grow older and older and yet still be able to walk around and travel and maybe even to have all our marbles (or most of them) even when into our 90s or 100s. So, we all have a whole lot of research to do to see how millions and millions of us are going to live past 100 and still be able to walk, and have all our faculties. This seems to be the next barrier to overcome of getting millions and millions of people worldwide past 100, then 110, then 120, then 130, then 140, then 150 and beyond. Imagine what can be accomplished with millions and millions of  people with 100 years or more of knowledge and experience each unbroken by death.