Jesse Torrey: Kidnapping,
American slave trade: or, An account of the manner in which the slave dealers
take free people from some of the United States of America, and carry them away
(1822) Reprinted by C. Clement and published by J. M. Cobbett

"We all seem to be coping near the edge of our native abilities now."

This being January 1st, New Year’s morning 2026, I am reminded that none of us inhabit our present or proceed into our future completely willingly. Each of us might have preferred to slow down the inexorable progression of time at times, if not halt it altogether. Especially during good times, which we learn from personal experience, always prove to be fleeting. No, time moves in only one direction, and it drags us along as if kidnapping us. We come to inhabit a once-upon-a-time future we wouldn’t have chosen, thereby challenging our always emerging, though never quite mature enough coping mechanisms, sometimes to our detriment. For my generation, the so-called Baby Boomers, the emergence of computing and its many associated industries has proven to be the most disconcerting. We realize, as I suppose only someone who remembers before times could, just how far from our imagined future our actual future has fallen. Computing didn’t turn out the way we’d dreamed it.

No future ever arrives as previously imagined, though, so my generation’s no different than any prior.

Tags: #Unscrolling, #PureSchmaltz