From My Ancestors to My Descendants

Now  I find myself writing posts to answer the young ones' inquiries. I did know some of the dead ones, and those dead ones won't write our story, "nuestro legado".

Here you have a little note on the subject.

Life nowadays is such, that most of us live to be more than sixty, at least around my environment. Thus, in the best of cases, I have walked two thirds of the way, the people I am thinking of right now, were born seventy to eighty years ago. I am the link to the generation that has walked less than two thirds of the way.

Life is a work of art: It has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Our ancestors were mostly viable, that is why we are here. Now you young ones, should aspire to be likewise, so your little ones can keep moving this experience we call civilization.

I had ideas when I was thirty, that I don't have at sixty. That is not called lack of conviction, it is simply called knowledge. I know more now than then. I am a Bayesian. Thomas Bayes was a clergyman who discovered that probability is the measure of our knowledge, it is not a Law of Nature. We can measure our subjective knowledge, I am happy to report that I have come to terms with that condition. Whoever thinks that there are Natural Laws, and once we discover them, we should be immortal, is in my view; in denial.

Given the level of unemployment in the generation, I am writing this to; I believe we should all look at facts as rationally as we can.

I am thinking of my uncle, Fidel Uriza Castro. One of the clearest minds I have had the privilege to know. My mother used to play Chinese Checkers with him, when I was around thirty; it was such a pleasure to see them, they were grown up children. I could imagine them playing twenty or more years before, with the same fresh minds, and joy. What a pleasure!

Uncle Fidel studied Iatrogenesis. He wrote a paper on that, to become a Medical Doctor, a Physician. Most Physicians won't touch the subject, because it will come to haunt them. It is the study of medically induced harm to patients. How else could we hope to not repeat mistakes, than  acknowledging them, and taking full responsibility for them? It takes courage though; he was a courageous man.

There is no point in telling the younger generation, that everything is O.K. when we can plainly see that they are making a mistake. Tough love? Maybe; but love nonetheless.

I am in his debt. When I got a Mexican Government scholarship to study at the University of California, my folks did not have money for my plane ticket, the scholarship did not cover it.

Fidel Uriza Castro paid for my ticket!

Thanks Uncle Fifi.