So, where is this guy coming from, anyway? Well, the past, mostly, and farther in the past than most people. As far as experiences go, a lot farther into the past.
When I was six, in 1962, my parents packed up their family, four boys at that time, and moved north to the Peace River area of Northern BC. They took up a quarter section of land under the Homestead Act. That land had a road leading to it. Period. I helped build the log cabin we lived in. No power. No running water. Wood stoves for heat. Hard winters.
When I was twelve, I almost froze to death. I and my two brothers were walking home from the school bus. The weather had turned cold that day, and we weren’t dressed for it. My younger brother and I had to practically drag our youngest brother along. We made it home – just. Frostbitten, but alive.
Lessons learned. Kindly Mother Nature will kill you in a heartbeat if you let her. Be prepared. Have a plan. Work the problem. You die when you quit. You quit when you’re dead.
The country boy who did his homework by a kerosene lantern had access to a public library. After his chores were done, he could read Doc Smith and Robert Heinlein sitting in the sun, and discover the larger world beyond our little farm and the small town that was the big city to us.
Today, there’s a slide rule sitting next to the Linux workstation on my desk. The cell phone in my pocket gives me instant access to an ocean of information, more than I could go through in a hundred lifetimes. The difference between me and the billions of other people who have the same access is that I’m sharply aware of just how much of a miracle it is, and how far we’ve come in a single human lifetime.
I read an old story, I can’t remember when or where, about a time traveler who traveled forward in time, and asked his host about the great problems of his day, only to be told they had all been solved. To which he asked, “Why is everyone looking so tense and harried, then?” His host replied, “Yeah, about that. We have real problems.”
Our era has real problems, far beyond those of the farm boy who was concerned about having enough wood cut to last the winter. The same principles apply. You can never know too much. Don’t panic. Work the problem. Keep going.
Those are the attitudes you’ll find in my writing. The door is open. Welcome.
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