After much personal deliberation and thought, I’ve decided we humans are getting less capable of rational thought. I’m sad to report this—I’ve fought the idea of successive generations degrading for decades. Old Man Carver strongly believed the idea. He also stood in his front yard and admired his property each evening as the sun disappeared.
Mr. Carver was concerned about my father’s peers—the folks Tom Brokaw called the Greatest Generation. My father also succumbed to the idea years later, based almost entirely on rock and roll and long hair, so I’ve been skeptical.
Since the wheel was invented, a steady stream of labor saving devices has become available to humans. Most made life easier by degrees. It took a long time for a bit easier to turn into ridiculously simple. But our instinctive need to complain about life being tough remains an issue. Maybe this comes from that tiny two percent sliver of Neanderthal DNA. Or maybe we can’t be happy being happy…