Moose Jaw -
Will I ever be a father?
Currently, the Times-Herald employs several pregnant women - peppered throughout various departments - and I can't help but feel there is perhaps some craving to spread my own DNA into future generations for which I should be more consciously aware. How is it that these seemingly normal people with whom I work have made this incredible decision to procreate?
Father's Day is much more than just an annual occasion for me to forget to call my dad. During this weekend, as a single childless freak, I'll probably spend Sunday watching my favourite TV shows, gossiping with those coworker friends and generally living my quiet life of desperation. For a 30-year-old man in my position, Father's Day is a good opportunity for me to ask the question, "Will I ever be a father?"
But why is the act of creating life from one's loins considered so normal? Well, I guess the answer is obvious. Until we reach a technological point where people can be grown in giant incubation chambers, imprinted with valuable life skills and hatched into that utopian world, we're all basically stuck doing "it" the old fashioned way.
It's interesting to ponder how different our society would be if humanity continues to evolve another 1,000 years into the future. Would our generation even be able to recognize such a distant time as anything resembling the world of today? Would the multiplex be a municipal heritage sight by this time?
Looking back 1,000 years ago, it's hard to imagine how someone from 1009 would view our time. Would he or she be able to wrap his or her mind around the 21st century, or would this entire high-tech and fast-paced reality simply terrify the individual to the point of suicide?
Quite frankly, I'm of the opinion the modern era is not that much different than any other period in human civilization, and chances are that despite the great achievements/disasters shaping the future, it too will fail in creating a spectacularly different reality from the one in which we currently dwell.
Simply put, people are just people no matter where or when they happen to live. I'm not much of a world traveller, but I did spend a year in a fantastically unique and bizarre country (at least it was strange by rural Alberta standards), but the thing that fascinated me most about South Korea by the time I left was just how identical Canadian and Korean people were.
Things such as language, technology and political structures are all completely superficial, really. Everyone is basically the same and all these separations (i.e., race, nationhood, religion) are completely artificial. Everyone just cares about their own survival and the survival of their relations. This is the real human condition and I doubt it has ever been any different, nor will it.
Which brings me back to the beginning of my column: Will I ever be a father? I don't know. However, I also don't know if parenthood is essential to participating in humanity fully. It seems one thing that makes us unique from other animals is that we are able to care for fellow members of our species as if they were relations, even if they do not carry any genetic link to us.
People adopt people, people serve lives of service and celibacy and people who simply choose not to procreate (or they can't) contribute by other means. Everyone in society furthers the human race, because we're all acting in ways that shape the future of our species as a society.
That's the great thing about this whole group sentience thing. We remember and future generations build upon the discoveries and mistakes of generations past. Just as we could not exist without humanity's discoveries 1,000 years ago, so too could not future people without ours. Our ability to pass down knowledge is what truly makes us immortal, regardless if we have children (or if we grow them in tanks).
So with that in mind, I suppose I am already a father. Happy Father's Day!
Carter Haydu can be reached at 691-1265.
