I've watched theatre on a regular basis for ten years now, but I'd never seen a Chekhov play until last night when I saw "The Three Sisters." Not that Chekhov plays hadn't been done before in town, but it always sounded like Chekhov was supposed to be watched for educational reasons more than entertainment. For all the warnings, I was actually entertained by the large cast, solid storytelling and simple philosophical yarns that were thrown about by everyone. It was as if everyone was hoping for a better tomorrow, even if it never actually came.

One of the lines at the end basically said that we suffer today so that everyone in the future will have a better tomorrow. While it was very much a turn-of-the-twentieth-century Russian way of thinking, that thought doesn't ring true to me today.

Did we really fight WWII so that the babyboomers would come along and rebel against their parents? Did babyboomers have kids so they would be able to have cell phones and text each other incessantly? Are we really worried about our children and our children's children paying for the things we choose to do today? I don't think so.

It's May all over the world right now, and that means kids are graduating high school and college just like they have for the last century or so. Will these kids be the hope for the future? Or will they just be another batch of folks who live and die in the allotted time they have?

I have met the scholars of the world, and they think too much. I have met the criminals of the world, and they scheme too much. I have met the workers of the world, and they work too much. I have met the obese of the world, and they eat too much. Will it be better in the future? Maybe, but I think there will be other things of the world, and they will do other things too much.

I can't think of any real golden age of civilization. People talk about The Greeks and the Romans and Egyptians and so on, but I don't know. If you look at Greeks and Romans and Egyptians today, they don't look any more advanced or enlightened than the rest of us. The sun never set on the British Empire a century ago, and no one is craving to be like them these days. What does Iran really want? A big bomb. So much for advancing civilization.

Yes, evolution occurs. We still procreate and have kids. I've got one myself. I will pass on whatever knowledge l can, but I don't hold out a bunch of hope that she will take the really important stuff that seriously. I do suffer a little to make her life better (you don't want to see me after four 12-hour cab days in a row), but I'm trying to make the life she is living right now better. Not the future. If for some reason, we can't have something or do something, then we go without. Everyone suffers for whatever life they live. It doesn't necessarily mean the future will be better.

I do remember a time when things got remarkably better in the United States. After becoming conscious of the world during the Reagan-Bush years, a guy by the name of Clinton came in and balanced the budget by a miraculous move called spending less than what the government made. It wasn't quite that simple, but it wasn't that complicated either. Suddenly, the economy took off, people got dot.com job, poor folks got off welfare, and the stock market boomed. This glorious renaissance lasted about five years until a couple planes hit the World Trade Center in NYC, and we've been screwing ourselves and the world ever since. Hope for the future? Maybe, but for how long?

So another batch of graduates are out into the world. Welcome! All I can say is don't become a Yellow Cab driver in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and if you do, stay out of The Triangle! Just kidding, kiddos. You can be a cab driver if you really want to. In fact you can be anything you want. That's what my parents told me, and it led to a life of never being able to focus on anything for any serious amount of time. That doesn't mean they didn't have hope for me.

That doesn't mean I don't have hope for you in the future either. I just can't see it. I can't see more than two weeks ahead, and I can't recall what happened two weeks ago. I'm firmly stuck in the present, and if there's any advice I can give you graduates, it's that the present is the only place where we actually exist.

All the best,
CJ

Chris Jungle has no plans to return to school.