The first impulse when told that somebody is pregnant is supposed to be of congratulations. I've never really felt that way. For me, it's more like "I'm sorry! That's terrible news! Think of all of the things that you'll have to give up, all of the changes that you'll have to make in your life, not living it the way that you want to! How sad!" But then, there is the other side...
Sometimes I get sad, knowing that there is nobody after me (and Cindy of course) to live for. I used to take a lot of pictures, but knowing that there will be nobody to share them with is kind of sad. All that I own, all that I know, everything that I've ever done, will all fizzle to nothing in just a few more years. (On a geologic time scale, of course...) Books? Gone. Beer? Long since pissed away. Clear gel? Ash and smoke. A fitting description for my life as measured by end results...
I saw that some French artist is soliciting words from people that they wish to communicate to our distant relations. He plans on condensing our words, and printing them on a compact disk series, then blasting the disk (and a player I presume) into space on a trajectory that will bring it back to Earth in 50,000 years. So his challenge to us? What will you say to your descendants so many hundreds of generations into the future? I've been thinking of this. Nothing of mine will survive. No hint of my genetic potential will survive that long. There will be no one who is even a LITTLE bit me in a scant 50 years, let alone a thousand times that long. People who have replicated, on the other hand, will leave a legacy that just might last that long, providing one of a thousand things that might happen to prevent it doesn't happen. They will have created a generational potential that may live until the Sun explodes, destroying all hint that there was ever a sentient being on this orbiting hunk of rock. I think that's kind of cool. Of course, I won't be part of that, and sometimes I feel the loss...
So we make choices, and live with the repercussions. I'm sure that I'm much happier now having made the (now irrevocable) choice of not breeding, but that doesn't mean that I don't see the downside to being the end of my lineage. For now, I live my life free of the sheer drudgery that seems to mark the lives of those who have tied their existence to perpetuating the species. I don't have to worry about child care, stretch marks, parent teacher conferences, teenage angst, un-planned pregnancies (my own or my children's), late nights wide awake wondering who my daughter is with, or worrying about who my son is causing trouble for. That's the plus side. The other side is that I will never know the joy of bringing a life into the world, guiding and nurturing that life into the semblance of fully functioning adulthood. And I will die lonely and alone, with no one who cares about me around. But I have asked myself some very tough questions, and, having arrived at an answer, I have decided to forswear adding another squalling voice to the cacophony that is the human race. You'll never thank me, but the world will be a better place for it, and would be an even better place if more people made the same choice. I seek not to proselytize, but instead to explain my reasons. You of course must make your own choices.
Copyright 1999 by Richard B. Webb, aka The Outsider.
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This document was placed here on April 29th, 1999, and has been viewed countless times since then...