The longest day of the year has mercifully been the coolest in June so far. The wind from the northeast (i.e., Siberia and the never-ending Russian steppes) is wonderful in the summer, not nightmarish as it is in winter.
Peaks are funny things. This day will have the most sunlight of any this year, yet the warmest days are yet to come. Likewise, the sun's nadir is always before Christmas, yet the coldest days come after the New Year, despite the sun's gaining strength every day. I like to think everything in nature and life has lesson that can be drawn from it, so what does this mean for us? Maybe it lets us know that "best" and "worst" are always immensely subjective terms. At 23, I'm probably as close to my physical prime as I'll ever be. Does that mean I always feel the best? Given the allergy situation that seems to blights most Americans in Ukrainian summers, no, not recently. Am I the strongest or most fit I've ever been? Resoundingly, no. I am definitely missing out on exercising due to lack of good places to run and a deficit of good gyms in town. Obviously, no one at 23 is at the wealth or wisdom zenith of their lives, so I won't even touch those. So what does a peak like today or this juncture in my life mean? In my opinion, not much. Age is just a number, and you shouldn't let the weather dictate how you feel or what you do--advice I wish Ukrainians followed from November to March. Similarly, what about our country? A lot of people, in newspapers, on the Internet, and on the streets, are saying that the U.S. is in decline, that our peak strength is past. To be sure, I don't know if the U.S. will be as strong relative to other nations as it was in the 1990s and early 2000s--the USSR had just imploded, and the huge countries of China and India had just entered the modern world. That doesn't mean our best days are behind us.
I was thinking today about the news and how doomsday predictions--about hotspots like Afghanistan or North Korea, about the environment and related catastrophes, and forecasts of famine or war--always get attention in the news. 2012, half the world's species extinct by the year 20XX, unsustainable population growth, etc. ad nauseum. Sure, a lot of these are bad. Sure, a lot of these can mean change or disaster. But what do disasters really mean in the big scheme of things? Take World Wars I & II--probably simultaneously the most devastating and important large-scale event(s) of the last 500 years. They changed so much over the world, and yet, at the end of the day, what happened? The world didn't stop turning. People didn't stop fighting or not fighting. In half the world, you'd be hard pressed to notice much of anything, i.e. Latin America, Africa, etc. Even in the most affected countries--Germany, the USSR, Japan, and China--where the destruction was biblical in scope, what happened? They rebuilt. Their people recovered, in a generation or two. Or look at the Black Death in medieval Europe. People died in thousands. It killed about a third of the population in Europe. I think that the Black Death was, safe to say, the most devastating plague in history. But it still only killed one third of people. Not to slight these deaths or any other, they're all horribly tragic, but at the end of the day, what matters? Life as we know it was never threatened. Civilization survived and even thrived. Life in general, and humans especially, have an amazing ability to adapt. Life goes on.
I wasn't anticipating writing all of that. I think I've had a lot flying around my head recently. At any rate, the camp has been a quasi-organized, quasi-chaotic, generally fun mess of large groups of screaming Ukrainian children and one American attempting to direct their energy into something besides whacking each other with brooms. On that point, it was a resounding success. Did the kids have fun? Yes. Did I? Mostly, I suppose. Did they learn anything? I hope so. Did I learn something? Well, at least my Russian vocabulary expanded.
I have 4 more days of camp with my 10th grade class; we finish on Saturday. Then summer vacation begins...
Peaks are funny things. This day will have the most sunlight of any this year, yet the warmest days are yet to come. Likewise, the sun's nadir is always before Christmas, yet the coldest days come after the New Year, despite the sun's gaining strength every day. I like to think everything in nature and life has lesson that can be drawn from it, so what does this mean for us? Maybe it lets us know that "best" and "worst" are always immensely subjective terms. At 23, I'm probably as close to my physical prime as I'll ever be. Does that mean I always feel the best? Given the allergy situation that seems to blights most Americans in Ukrainian summers, no, not recently. Am I the strongest or most fit I've ever been? Resoundingly, no. I am definitely missing out on exercising due to lack of good places to run and a deficit of good gyms in town. Obviously, no one at 23 is at the wealth or wisdom zenith of their lives, so I won't even touch those. So what does a peak like today or this juncture in my life mean? In my opinion, not much. Age is just a number, and you shouldn't let the weather dictate how you feel or what you do--advice I wish Ukrainians followed from November to March. Similarly, what about our country? A lot of people, in newspapers, on the Internet, and on the streets, are saying that the U.S. is in decline, that our peak strength is past. To be sure, I don't know if the U.S. will be as strong relative to other nations as it was in the 1990s and early 2000s--the USSR had just imploded, and the huge countries of China and India had just entered the modern world. That doesn't mean our best days are behind us.
I was thinking today about the news and how doomsday predictions--about hotspots like Afghanistan or North Korea, about the environment and related catastrophes, and forecasts of famine or war--always get attention in the news. 2012, half the world's species extinct by the year 20XX, unsustainable population growth, etc. ad nauseum. Sure, a lot of these are bad. Sure, a lot of these can mean change or disaster. But what do disasters really mean in the big scheme of things? Take World Wars I & II--probably simultaneously the most devastating and important large-scale event(s) of the last 500 years. They changed so much over the world, and yet, at the end of the day, what happened? The world didn't stop turning. People didn't stop fighting or not fighting. In half the world, you'd be hard pressed to notice much of anything, i.e. Latin America, Africa, etc. Even in the most affected countries--Germany, the USSR, Japan, and China--where the destruction was biblical in scope, what happened? They rebuilt. Their people recovered, in a generation or two. Or look at the Black Death in medieval Europe. People died in thousands. It killed about a third of the population in Europe. I think that the Black Death was, safe to say, the most devastating plague in history. But it still only killed one third of people. Not to slight these deaths or any other, they're all horribly tragic, but at the end of the day, what matters? Life as we know it was never threatened. Civilization survived and even thrived. Life in general, and humans especially, have an amazing ability to adapt. Life goes on.
I wasn't anticipating writing all of that. I think I've had a lot flying around my head recently. At any rate, the camp has been a quasi-organized, quasi-chaotic, generally fun mess of large groups of screaming Ukrainian children and one American attempting to direct their energy into something besides whacking each other with brooms. On that point, it was a resounding success. Did the kids have fun? Yes. Did I? Mostly, I suppose. Did they learn anything? I hope so. Did I learn something? Well, at least my Russian vocabulary expanded.
I have 4 more days of camp with my 10th grade class; we finish on Saturday. Then summer vacation begins...
