Life Timing

And the waves roll out and the waves roll in
          Mildred Plew Meigs   (sung by Brothers Four)

D Vautier
8/2013

Did you ever think that you were born too soon?  Or too late?

I took a futures class in 1976 as part of my graduate program at Portland State University.  This class was trying to study present trends and attempting to forecast what life may be like in 20 years.  We wrote papers on possible futures and nobody in the class even came close to what really did happen.  Not one of us was onto the idea of PC computing or the internet or cell phones or notepads. Instead we dreamed up the usual Star Trek stuff like bigger TV screens, better coffee makers, safer cars, cleaning robots, ridiculous automation and gadgets like people movers and better stereos.

So here I am sitting on my old retired ass as a has-been used-up computer programmer tempted to think that my working career was perfectly timed for the times with all the great stuff I got to do.  Yet again I think of the incredible opportunities that are just emerging in robotics, surgery, prosthetics, disease control, biological engineering and a host of other things that rely on the type of talents, nerve, determination and enthusiasm that I used to have long ago, or may still have for that matter.  Maybe my life skill set was not necessarily timed for the times but perhaps a little early or perhaps a little late?

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