We are gradually controlling the world around us and within us.
So like the gods we imitate we think we can be happy, become all that we were meant to be and live lives of pleasure, fulfillment and ease. For women it means to have choice. Choice to marry. Choice to have a career. Choice to have children, or not. For both men and women it means choice over lifestyle, choice of food, vitamin supplements, exercise routines, cosmetic surgery, etc.,etc. In this intense moment of human history there is a pause as we move from a largely unselfconscious existence to an almost painfully self-conscious existence. We have moved through the "is this all there is" time, to a time characterized by "we can become what we want, what we imagine". Add to this a widespread background fear that the "party" may be over soon: peak oil, global warming (name your concern or fear) and there seems little reason to "settle down" and invest in family formation for the future. Our hubris is paradoxically causing us to hit the pause button which governs longer term trends while we choose our immediate futures in the here and now: Anyone for a new diet or a new health supplement or a new exercise routine or perhaps a new exotic destination? I think that it is this more than anything else that is causing some of the trends in the "developed" world. Of course no one knows what is going on. Just my guess, as of this moment in a heat wave here in Ottawa. Arthur
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