We owe that unforgettable opening from Charles Dickens' "Tale Of Two Cities" which still resonates today as it had for all times past. We can expect the same for what awaits us in our future. Whether it is looking at our personal lives or that of the world around us, "the best of times and the worst of times" seem to come in equal or unequal doses. Of course, it is everybody's wish that we go through more best times than worst in our journey through life. Often, however, there is also this idea of whether one views a glass as half empty or half full. There is no easy way to address the question, let alone use a broad brush to answer it. Best we can do is look through different filters to address a few of them.
1. Lifespan vs. Health Span
Today, on average we are living longer through the filter of statistics. The U.S., which has kept good records show that in 1900 the average life expectancy for white men was 46.6 years, women by about two years longer. By 2000, white men's lifespan went up to 74.4 years, while white women's went up to 79.9 years. Minorities lagged behind but their lifespans increased as well over the same period. World population, also on average, increased considerably. Several countries are actually outpacing the U.S. but third world averages are way below.
One may say, based on lifespan alone, that today we are living in "the best of times". However, we are told to recognize another measure. Along with how long our life expectancy rises, we must be cognizant of how well we are living, physiologically that is, and perhaps even emotionally, thus the term was coined, "health span". In the early 1900s, the number one cause of death was heart attack, or more commonly, heart failure (or HF). It still is today. However, survivors of the first incidence of HF do better now than a decade or so ago. Modern medicine, lifestyle changes that include diet and exercise are the reasons.
So, can we then say that lifespan and health span are what would make a glass full? On average, we can say that that full glass is what we call being 21 years old. By forty, we can only hope that from then on a full glass would have a reasonable mix, albeit in slightly reduced strength or diluted solution of both, but still in about equal doses. You and I would wish that to be consistently true, but then again our best times and worst of times will differ.
2. At The Right Place, At The Right Time
Physicists would fondly call that being at the sweet spot of spacetime. You see, everyone can relate his or her good fortune by being at a favorable point anywhere at some fortuitous time. By way of example, let me relate just one particular story that would explain the heading above.
Over two years ago we hired a cleaning lady to help out for one day a week. Hiring her was timely because shortly thereafter my wife was diagnosed with Parkinson's. The lady was recommended by a friend. She speaks little English but her husband and two children (who were born here) do. Soon she became like a family member who is with us every Saturday. We serve her breakfast when she arrives in the morning before she starts her chores and she joins us for lunch (typically home-cooked) and she gets to take home the leftover. She is very thorough with her job - from helping with laundry, changing the bed's linens and, of course, the general house cleaning.
A year ago, she had a stroke. Fortunately, she was at home with her daughter. The response to the 911 call was quick and she was at the hospital in time for doctors to get her the immediate and proper attention. For the next 3-4 months she struggled with her balance and movement and she slurred her speech. Miraculously, she recovered in less than five months. She regained her normal movements and shortly after, her slurred speech was gone. After another month she came back to resume her work with us. Her daughter took a leave from her job and did the driving for her and to help her with the chore. Later, she was driving by herself though her daughter still came with her for a bit more. Today, it is as if she didn't have the stroke; except, of course, that she has a regimen of medicine and regular check ups. Several months ago she ran a part of a marathon for three miles.
She is the first to admit that had this happened in Mexico where she is from where medical emergency care was inadequately timely and the nearest hospital was an hour away, she would simply have become a statistical number to succumb to stroke.
Unlike the millions from many areas around the world with less than ideal emergency and follow up health care, from the right medicines to post illness therapy, she was at the right place, at the right time. There are innumerable stories like hers all around the world if we care to look and listen.
3. Not Too Hot, Not Too Cold
It is otherwise known as the Goldilocks zone of where earth is, relative to its location from the sun. Venus is much too hot while Mars is way too cold. Only on earth among all the other planets that orbit the sun where water exists as a liquid naturally. Life as we know it emerged and continues to thrive in an environment that is just right - not too hot, not too cold.
However, this Goldilocks zone is not the proverbial "Garden of Eden' all throughout every region and not consistently unchanged throughout history, from epoch to epoch. It had gone through at least five ice ages followed by global warming over thousands of years to complete each time. The reason: (a) The sun (one million times the size of earth) that is the source of 99.999 per cent of the heat and 100% of the gravitational force that holds the entire solar system disburses its energy irregularly at times. It goes through tantrums as it travels through its orbit around its own master - the Milky Way galaxy that has at least two hundred billion other suns. (b) Earth's orbit around the sun is not a perfect circle. It is slightly an ellipse, thus its distance from the sun varies from slightly closer to farther away over each revolution.
We are who we are today along with all living things because we managed to evolve to survive the many changes in our environment over long periods of adaptation. The unrelenting climate changes all organisms went through made us look different from others - for example, darker skin protected those close to the equator from the sun's damaging rays, paler skin for those closer to the poles to help absorb vitamin D from the sun; and all shades of skin color in between the equatorial and polar regions.
All throughout earth's history its inhabitants had gone through innumerable "best of times, worst of times" but here we are today - the survivors of an ever changing environment, yet life prevailed because of its indomitable ability to adapt.
4. Wars, Rumors of War And Hopes For Peace
"The history of mankind seems to be the history of war", is a quote I ran across that I cannot recall who it was attributed to for its origin. But clearly we are used to seeing history being written predominantly by the victors of war(s). Often, these conflicts throughout our history are romanticized where heroism and the struggles to victories, war after war, were immortalized and celebrated. Historians subdivide histories in terms of eras and changing empires along their rise and fall, despite an unchanging geographical landscape, except for the constant changes of one empire emerging after another. Where we are today is merely a more recent makeup of where power resides but it is still the same round globe.
There is no such thing as a minor war because to those involved who perished in it, suffered from it, even for those who survived it, any war is a major war. We identify two great wars of WWI and WWII but there has not been a generation (or 25 years) in recorded history when there was no war someplace, somewhere. Between 1914 and 1939 was a mere 25 years between the start of each world war.
So, we have historians who write about wars, and there are prophets who predict upcoming wars. Neither historians nor prophets should be ignored but one thing we clearly do not do is learn from either.
The good news is that peace shall come after the worst of times to be followed by the best of times.
The reader is urged to take this for what it is worth - a commentary, but clearly no one can claim with certainty of its occurrence at a specific time and date but the trajectory is unassailable because the history of man is a history of conflict that only a supernatural intervention can assuage.
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