When I was your age, I thought humanity could evolve and progress; humanity, not commerce. As people grew more productive, through improved education, training and technology, the necessities of life could be produced with less labor, meaning increased leisure time for education, cultural pursuits, athletics; we would become better and more human, somehow. I didn’t realize the necessities of life would grow faster than our productivity, so that by now we have less free time, not more, and that any free time would be consumed in the form of unemployment.

I met a man on the train once, he had been on the WHO team that wiped out smallpox; now we’re stockpiling smallpox vaccine again.

When I was your age, I thought cars would burn something cleaner, in many respects, than gasoline by the time I was my age. When I was your age, I believed mass enlightenment was a possibility.

At that time, I expected we would have the good sense to reduce our consumption of natural resources, fossil fuels and our production of garbage and waste. I did not expect that we would poison our seas, or drive so many plants and animals extinct. When you are my age, you’ll be telling your children what bananas were.

When I was your age, I thought adults had fucked up the world terribly and that I would be part of a generation that fixed that. We would not send young men to dubious foreign wars; we would set a good example for the world. I believed killing was bad, for any reason, and thought this opinion would spread.

Now, I separate my garbage and tell myself I’m doing something. I bitch about politicians, but that’s about the extent of it. I’m sorry for blowing it. I’m sorry CEOs earn 500 times as much as workers. I’m sorry people starve while food rots. I’m sorry for so much. If you killed me in my sleep I would understand. I wish you luck, strength and wisdom.