In this old, cold, poisoned age,
Every tooth against the grain,
Every dream a suicide dream,
We are children without children.
We cannot imagine how our parents
Grew up without a backseat screen—
What did they do on road trips?
Grown big, we have stayed the same,
We who “find and capture pleasure,”
Happy warriors, stringing our captives
To our graves—their “joy and incense”
Devoured forever, like King Tut… and
Unto the most refined, the jeunesse
Doree, the cumulation of refined
Aesthetic experience defines us.
Us, not them—who knows
No history must remain a child;
Yet so must who knows not
His own place in history; so, a
Widower, ripped apart near fifty,
I take my own turn as Peter Pan.
The dogs bark. The caravan rolls on.
How otherwise would life emerge
From death? Don’t kill time—
I guarantee you will regret it.
A friend explains to my daughter:
“It’s a legitimate form of temporary
Polyamory—they call it ‘dating.’”
She is not super into this century—
Yet of course will have to live in it,
At least in its happy aristocracy:
Elbowed by children without children,
A bald and spotted gifted-school,
Whimsical and jaded, sterile and lovely
And smart and classy, our every whim
Satisfied by armies of gay robots,
Dominating a ruthless planet of orcs.
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Curtis, to encourage you, you do not suffer from Peter Pan Syndrome. You are 20 years into marriage and raising kids, two factors that are lacking for Peter Pan Syndrome, which is a refusal to take on adult responsibilities. Now you are an honorable widower, you did not reject your spouse years ago, you took it all the way until death do us part, that is rare and commendable these days. Keep on looking out for your kids, wisely and patiently find a new wife, you have a good family compass. After taking care of responsibilities, it is okay to be energetic and motivated (even if no longer so young). It's okay to be curious and to think deeply on topics, especially important topics where insights may still be found.
Not actually seeing the happy aristocracy, but instead legions if childless women acting out of suppressed emotional pain and doped to the gills with antidepressants. Sounds like a prediction of Fully Automated Luxury Communism. Except that’s never going to happen. Tyrants would need to have good intentions and want to spread the happy nice things to others, even if it were somehow technologically achievable. The rising elite are not lovely, they are sadistic. The prospect of some spectacular resistance movement arising is limited to action-oriented science fiction, most likely. But a sullen, bitter retreat by masses of people into their private worlds or cliques or networks, to the extent they are permitted to have them, while the official structure ossifies, seems pretty likely. Meanwhile, there are billions of people out there who are hungry, and all you need to do is open the door and they will come in and eat everything, and reduce the entire place, outside the walled enclaves, to a garbage dump fully of uprooted people living in universal degradation. Inside the fortresses will be no picnic either, but they probably won’t actually be hungry, physically.