My nine year old granddaughter is taking a special effects makeup class this summer at the Utah Children’s Theatre in Salt Lake City.
She made herself up as a ninety year old woman, and sent me a photo of it.
At first, I was a little surprised, maybe even slightly stunned. I could actually imagine that moment in the future.
That’s 81 years from now. That’ll be the year 2100. She will have had children who will be sixty, grandchildren who will be somewhere in their thirties, and great grandchildren who will be in their early teens.
I suddenly became sad thinking about it.
We’re all snowflakes passing through life.
How will her life be different in 2100, than our lives are in 2019?
Not much I suppose . . . . I don’t know about you, but my personality is pretty much what it is today at 74 as it was at 9.
What changes is the discovery of new technology, and the increasing speed at which new stuff is introduced.
It’s highly likely my granddaughter will see the common use of human cloning and gene engineering,
. . . wait a second. In my lifetime, I’LL see human cloning. After all, we already see championship polo horses in Argentina that are clones.
I’m almost positive that gene engineering will have been introduced. Genes that close off aging will have been introduced. My granddaughter might look that old at 120, but definitely not at 90.
So, I’m going to tell her to retrieve and store some of her stem cells, so she can replicate herself if ethical and biological barriers can be overcome.
In the next five years, I’m seriously thinking about storing some of my own stem cells.
But, here is the reality. As this occurs, no matter how old my granddaughter and I live to be, or how healthy we continue to be, she will always be who she is, and I will always be who I am.
So this touches on a profound truth. Let technology and clones and gene engineering and the future take care of themselves. My granddaughter’s life and my life are worth living, if they are lived fully right now.
I take nothing for granted. I smell every sweet aroma that passes me by, I look at every little scene that catches my eye.
I love every little moment . . . that’s all there is. For us humans, it is an ever present present.