I don't want to be a spectator

The ENIAC was designed and built while my grandfather was still a young man running through the woods of Inhambane.

Rockets landed on the moon a few years before my father and mother came into this world.

The internet was created before my father and mother met.

The dotcom era started right around the time my father and mother had their 3rd child.

All of this was way before I was born. I was welcomed into a magnificent world, built by giants to whom we are all indebted. They never saw the full impact of the work of their lives.

I can take a device made of glass out of my pocket at any moment and talk to my sister at the other end of the country in real time. I can collaborate with my friend who’s in western Asia without any perceivable delays.

Ladies and gentlemen, we live in a utopia. It’s true that there is a lot that we have to improve in our society, but the world we live in today is marvelous. A work of art. A portrait painted by many artists over centuries.

I must also participate in building the world future generations will live in.

I can’t come into this marvelous world built by others and not do my best to contribute something, however small, for the next generations. I must participate in the tradition of leaving things better than I found them. I must help prepare this generation’s gift to the next.

In the words of Isaac Newton, we stand on the shoulders of giants. Our kids must stand on ours.

I close this with a question to myself:

What am I doing for the next generation?