For ten weeks, I’ve looked at the changes in the world over the course of my life, which is exactly 70 years long as of the moment this posts on the blog.

Change usually doesn’t happen quickly. We often tend to think of our existence as getting through another day. It doesn’t seem exciting or even seem to be a change at all. Then you think about it and wonder when everybody started drinking bottled water.

The premise of these about-to-be 71 pieces was imagining what it would be like to tell my parents about what would happen in my lifetime and their response to it. And perhaps what I’ve enjoyed most about doing this is channeling my parents, who aren’t here to see this; it has been a joy in my imagination.

To be honest, I think my Dad would scoff at a lot of what I’ve described; my Mom not so much. Some of what has transpired since 1954 would seem like science fiction or bad political drama to people of that time.

But change has come. And it wasn’t just the 70 things I described. I can think of a bunch of ideas that I couldn’t get into this countdown or thought about after I had set the list.

Often people my age or older get nostalgic for the past, aka, the good old days. They seem to think things were better back when – when we were kids, when we were teens, when we became young adults, and so on.

The extreme of this is the MAGA movement. It’s only partially due to Trump, who has masterfully exploited it. It’s mostly due to some notion that there was a better time than now, probably back in the 1950s and 1960s when they were kids or young adults.

It wasn’t a better time. Even if you’re a white male, whose privilege gave you an advantage over the rest of the population. We eat better and more interesting stuff. We have a wider array of entertainment. There are sports teams in more major cities. Certain diseases have been eradicated and others have better treatments that offer easier and longer management.

We’re a better society when everyone participates. And the idea that more people can, whether because of law or science, is a positive.

But not everything is better.

Social media is a way to communicate with friends – or among people with horrific ideas. Plastic makes things lighter and cheaper – and is almost impossible to degrade. We can do amazing things with a computer or smartphone – or disengage at the dinner table and in a theater. There’s more to entertain us – and some of it is garbage.

The future is not linear. It really is two steps forward and one step back. Not everything will get better right away. 

And some terrible things are persistent: racism, cancer, war, religious bigotry, radical nationalism, ignorance, misogyny and more.

But even they are not intractable. I won’t see 2094 (or maybe there will be some breakthrough in the next few years that will allow me to live to 140). However, I’m confident and hopeful that the world will be a better place. In part because of the things we do and work on now. 

My plan is to revise this countdown in 2034 to see what progress has been made in the next decade. In the meantime, with some of the rest of you, I’m going to begin enjoying my septuagenerian status.