HOW MUCH?
What are our limits? Do we have any bounds beyond which we dare not go?
Again, we are talking seriously about going to Mars. This time we plan o do a stop over at a moon settlement which we establish to give us platform on which to stand in order that we might find it easier to blast off for the Red Planet. That goal is situated a few million miles down, up, over, across, or through the space between the two locations.
Notice, if you will, how non-nonchalantly, how casually we mention that part of the plan which calls for us to put permanent way-station on the surface of Moon .We are, it seems, stating a known fact that we are capable of doing so without a great deal of trouble – except monetary expense, which we minimize enough in the telling, to make it seem that the sooner we get started on the project the better. It has not been too many years ago when we wondered about the possibility of ever doing that sort of thing at all.
That's just one point we had best give some serious consideration if we wish to assure any kind of a future at all for ourselves and our progeny. One of them we attempt to set aside but it is one which grows on you the more it is ignored.. We disguise the simple warning that tells us fat is fatal. We try to ignore it. It grows on you anyway, We are becoming overweight - too much so for our vital organs to properly handle our mass and the relationship is worsening constantly, it seems.
I have no idea who would ever want to figure out but such studies now show that Americans eat about nineteen acres of pizza per day. Not that pizza is an offender to acquiring excess weight, but when it is overdone. That's true pf so many of our favorite foods in each of the food groups. Gluttons get gout, and from steady stomach stuffing by any one of them. So food intake is another area of today's living where we might well learn to apply more common sense,
A third instance among which we tend to go to excessive use in pour present lifestyle is plastic materials present among us in the form of small, printed cards which enable us to buy things as if we had real money in hand. Credit cards, Debit cards, of plastic or fancy cardboard, membership cards which entitle you to benefits not available to others, all such seemingly free passes to pleasure, rove to be painful in time.. Years ago, when Diner's Club introduced the first such card, I remember so well, wanting one, but I never arrived at that point where I could afford to do so. Huge mountains of the family debts are today credit card caused.
We are nation blessed with plenty. And yet, seemingly as a part of our very nature, we want more - or better than we have. That is a good trait in that it keeps us from becoming a nation which complacently accepts conditions as they exist at a given time as being the best, not only for ourselves but for others as well. We go to some curious clothing styles at times, for instance, taking to fashions and styles which a generation look silly. We have been given a sense of humor to deal with such problems of excess. Even now we are just emerging., I feel, from a revolution in our musical life.. Years ago we became so satiated with melody that young blood in times of turmoil and unrest, called for a return to primitive rhythms We are just now showing signs of recovering from this beyond tuneful songs with meaningful lyrics. For that, I give thanks to our Creator. In the era of Acid Rock I had just about given up all hope. That may well be the one point when I feel we came the closest to “too much.”
A.L.M. January10, 2004 [c683wds]
