Kenders' Musings

Throughout mankind's history people were born at home, where their mother lived when the moment came.  No matter where they lived or who ruled the land they lived in, they lived with a reality in which being born at home was only the first of many trials one would face. There were no sterile delivery rooms, gown clad medical professionals or medications.  The truth of the matter is you were pretty much on your own.  Life's a rough deal, nobody gets out alive and it's not by any stretch of the word 'fair'.  The more successful folk would have midwives attending, or if they were lucky enough they would have women around who had already gone through childbirth and could help, but for the bulk of humanity it was a do it yourself project for the most part.

Now the bulk of us, at least in the developed world, are born into sterile delivery rooms with experienced professionals, modern medical equipment and a whole host of other goodies to make the experience much safer and much less painful.  And we live our lives with this mindset, that there will always be someone around with the experience and equipment to make our lives safer and less painful.

If you think about these two situations it is the perfect metaphor, when you consider the implications of both situations and what expectations they give us, for a major problem we face in America today.  Namely the idea that life should be safer and less painful, for everyone, and it's the governments job to provide that for us.  The problem is this; even though we have these experienced professionals and these wondrous drugs and tools, for all of our technology and wisdom life is essentially the same.

Life is inherently not a safe endeavor, nor is it painless, and no matter how badly we wish for utopia the truth of life makes it impossible.  Humanity thrives only when challenged.  Hand humans a life of safety free from pain and you will end up with caged animals, unable to take care of themselves in even the slightest capacity.  Like animals born into captivity they become dependent upon their keepers.

Where would we be had we, as a species, enacted some sort of socialist utopian vision where the government took care of your essential needs in, say, the 17th century?  Would we have automobiles? Most likely not.  Would we have gone to space? Almost definitely a no. Telephones? Televisions? Modern medical equipment or drugs?  Almost certainly none of the advances that make living in the developed world in the 21st century would have happened had we lived in a society where all you needed was handed to you.

As I said, humanity thrives only when challenged.  I, for one, prefer the challenge of standing on my own two feet, seeing what I can accomplish without it being handed to me.  The pride in success, the self esteem from accomplishment, the rewards of overcoming obstacles and reaching goals chosen, and met, of my own accord cannot possibly be outweighed by becoming a kept subject, reliant upon those in power, trading my liberty for the surety of a bed and a meal.  Of course there is always the possibility of failure.

But I will take failure and freedom over servitude and surety anytime.