Because I believe in fighting the attitude comedian Louis C.K. describes as "Everything's amazing, nobody's happy," here's what I posted in response:
Half a century ago there's a better than even chance I would be a widower and most likely, Theo would be in the ground with Ruth, if he'd been born at all.
30 years ago my grandfather died unexpectedly because of a congenital hereditary defect; today, his sons can be tested for that defect and will not die from it.
Twenty years ago HIV was a death sentence.
One of my best friends has identical twin girls whose chance of surviving birth would've been only 50/50 20-25 years ago; in this decade, they were never in any danger.
My cousin has a heart defect and would've been dead the day he was born, if he'd been born just 15 years ago.
One of my best friends had a heart defect repaired last year, a procedure that could add anywhere from 20-50 years to her life and greatly improve the quality of that life.
With the exception of HIV, these are just stories from the tiny, tiny number of people I know personally.
Some of these dates are almost certainly inaccurate, as I just wrote off the cuff. Regardless, I'm grateful to live in such amazing times, and to still have all these people alive to share it with.
1 comment:
Louis CK has issues and is projecting them onto other people. He's now divorced because he kept using his personal life as material for his comedy despite his wife's requests for privacy.
But it's always a good thing to look around and acknowledge the positive things today when many people either dwell on the good of the past or the future but often don't appreciate what we have today.
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