Looking Forward by Kenneth Jr. (reading diary .txt) 📕

will remain trouble-free for a long period? There is only one device in your home that is designed to last about twenty years. It is likely that it won’t require service during this time. And you don’t even own it! Although it is a complicated electronic instrument, you can drop it on the floor, and it probably won’t break. Whether you use it once a day or continuously throughout the day, it does not seem to wear out. The reason it was designed to give at least two decades of trouble-free service is that it was not made to be sold. The company that rents it to you would have to repair it at their own expense if something were to go wrong. So they make sure that this complex device is engineered to high standards. They can’t make money if it breaks down every few months. In case you haven’t guessed the name of this one thing in your home that has been engineered to give you maximum utility and minimum maintenance, it is the telephone! It is designed for trouble-free use, not for cheap production at a profit. How wonderful it is to realize that there are ways to get off the treadmill of buy it, use it, junk it, and buy it again!

Standing Room Only

Overpopulation of the world is a twentieth-century problem. It took until about 1800 for us to spawn a world population of one billion. Current predictions indicate that the present population of three and one-third billion will explode to seven billion by the end of this century and to sixteen billion by the year 2040 if the growth rate is not changed.

This enormous growth in population in many areas of the world is greatly exceeding the ability of most countries to provide food and decent living standards. The FAO World Food Survey of 1963 found that at least 60 per cent of the people in the under-developed areas were undernourished and that half of the world suffers from hunger, or malnutrition, or both. In Africa, Latin America, and the Far East, food production is growing only two-thirds as fast as the population. In the latter two areas the per capita food production is still below the levels attained twenty-five years ago! Eugene R. Black, former president of the World Bank, has summed it up in this way:

I must be blunt. Population growth threatens to nullify all our effort to raise living standards in many of the poorer countries. We are coming to a situation in which the optimist will be the man who thinks present living standards can be maintained.

Cultural Dilemmas

Most of the built-in dilemmas that face human beings in our fast-changing world pose problems for which the wisdom of the past offers no effective solutions. In so many ways we’re like a man chased to the edge of a cliff by a roaring lion. If he jumps, he’ll be hurt. And if he stays there, the lion’s going to get him. For example, we have built-in sexual drives that become strong in the teen years. Marriage may seem to offer a solution. Yet, the marriage counselors advise us that early marriages have a greater rate of divorce—that a person needs to experience life and achieve a degree of maturity before choosing a life partner. The individual suffers no matter how he tries to solve the problem. If a person has an active sex life before marriage, the mores of our tribe may load him with feelings of guilt. If an unmarried person denies his need for sexual expression, he may enjoy a culturally-clean conscience, but he will be fighting a constantly stimulated, deep need that has been structured into his body. Guilt feelings may still arise from vivid sexual fantasies, erotic dreams, or masturbation.

No matter what choice a person makes in this situation, it is usually accompanied by conflict and doubt. Not only in matters of sex, but in most business, personal, and social matters we are confronted with countless dilemmas. Our present folkways make it difficult to achieve effective solutions that deeply contribute to human dignity and happiness.

On the Homefront

“The mass of men,” said Thoreau, “lead lives of quiet desperation.”

The lives of most people in our present civilization fall far short of fulfilling levels of serenity and happiness. Ann Landers, a newspaper columnist, who deals with personal problems received this poignant letter:

Dear Ann Landers:

How do you feel after reading a couple of hundred letters? Disenchanted, I’ll bet.

When I look back at my own life, its problems and its failures, I wonder what is it all about?

Then I look at my children and what has happened to their lives. Dear God, I tried. He knows I tried. But where did I fail? I must have failed. I am their mother.

The children went to church and Sunday School. They earned Bibles for perfect attendance and they had love. But here is the record:

One married while in the Air Force. Five years later—debt, drinking, divorce. Two children, two unhappy pawns. Remarriage out of the church. More debts.

Our daughter, desperately in love in high school, married to a fine but sick man. Willing but unable to work. Debts, then death.

A new love? She thought so, but her second marriage was a poor one. Where will it end? Heaven only knows. ...

The lives of not-so-quiet desperation of many people are reflected in another letter received by Ann Landers.

Dear Ann:

Our five children are in bed and I am looking at a huge basket of clothes that I should be ironing, but I’m writing this letter to you instead.

I’m so exhausted if I walked past the bed and looked at it I’d fall asleep standing up.

My husband is a wonderful person and a terrific father. He doesn’t drink or gamble and wouldn’t think of spending a dime on himself. He always puts me and the children first. He works hard at his job, but every week they take something out of his paycheck. I don’t think we’ll ever be