Haibun: What We Leave Them
I called my nephew a “baby.” At two he’s starting to develop his personality. He called me a “puppy.” I did my “Oh no you didn’t!” routine and called him a “chicken,” at which he responded, “balk!” My sister and I laughed!
I was filled with a certain joy, a joy knowing he gets play and gets the how jokes work in play. Sure, when he is 4, he will tell a joke with a punch line that doesn’t make sense to anyone but him. He will laugh and try to make it seem like you are the stupid one for not getting the joke. That will likely continue for 2-15 more years. Who knows? But there is certain patterns to human development that take place and certain joys those of us who love the child, experience when those developments take place.
But he faces something I didn’t have to grow into. As the carbon from the fossil fuels we have burned up for the past 150 years fills the air and the ocean, and is now being measured (not hypothesized about), we are seeing the temperatures escalate. Working outside, the mornings of this Phoenix summer start off at 88 degrees Fahrenheit. It is 90 before 7am. Each week is another week where we have set a new record for the global collective temperature average.
This is the new reality for him. Artificial Intelligence and algorithms hungry to take all entry level jobs in the name of efficiency and higher profits, he will likely have to start his working career against machines when I only had to worry about other teens and who liked who. I worry about him and his chances with what lies ahead as machines try to take over the world like their emissions already have.
All I can do right now is see him and give my best effort at him knowing, intuitively, that he is loved. I can’t think of a better way to get him ready for this world we built then to reach further than he thought possible because he knows, deep down, he is loved enough to fail and be worth picking back up to try again.
