The uncertainty of today’s “temporary” generation

At the National University of Butare (NUR), there is a name-giving culture for every batch of fresher’s that join that great institution. These names are uniquely hilarious and there is no clue as to the person who comes up with these name ideas. However, if you look back to the beginning of history you will find different ages and stages of life spread throughout time. The last couple of ages are the easiest to remember: Stone, Iron, Metal, and Industrial age. It seems as though humans are adept at not only naming these ages but also at leaving trace reminders for generations a head. The cavemen had cave-wall drawings, and this is how people identified with their ancestors who left markings or drawings while they existed and these memories lived through time. However, history shows that people have had conflicts yet, never before has there been an age where a name that described an era was lacking. These names I have heard or read are in no particular order; for example: The Second Dark Age, The Computer Age, The Digital Age, The Age of Fear, The Second Industrial Age, The Green Era, The Carbon Age, The Muslim Era, The Age of UnReason and the list goes on. Surrounding these themes are computers, the environment, government intervention, or religious hysteria; this is a show of total paranoia. Today I could say we are living in the ‘The Temporary Age,’ for the simple reason that we are leaving nothing for those who will come twenty generations ahead of us. There seems to be no mark by which we shall be identified, there is nothing to decode who we are, I mean totally nothing! Some of our buildings might survive, perhaps, everything else we might turn to dust. Our tools and weapons are plastic. Our lives, and the lives we cherish, are forever preserved, yet everything these days is digital. There are no carvings on walls for us. When you remove the electricity you have removed the life out of us!!! In every age people have left something for those who come twenty or thirty generations ahead. Man the ‘Builder and Creator,’ will eventually succeed in deleting any permanent record of himself from the history books. Future anthropologists and sociologists will be hard pressed to adequately analyze and interpret any ‘raw data’ that this ‘Temporary Generation’ has left of itself. The technological rush for ‘better-faster-stronger’ could be the undoing of the current age. The long term effect of our quick-paced lifestyle and technological advancements will definitely leave no recordable evidence for future generations to discover who we are. Whatever we do and cope with through this fast paced ‘Temporary Age,’ people need to leave a mark that will be cherished down the history lane. Emmanuel Nyagapfizi is a regular contibutor to The New Times