FRIDAY, MAR 15, 2019: NOTE TO FILE
What's Your Zeitgeist?
Comment on your existence
Eric Lee, A-SOCIATED PRESS
TOPICS: SPEAK FOR YOURSELF, FROM THE WIRES, FEW WORDS, WORDS, WORDS
Abstract: Write a statement, 256 characters or less, that sums up your existential situation. Sharing is optional.
Coos Bay (A-P) — So what's your line? What summing up can you give of your subsystem's activities, or intended activities, on this Earth? Give some accounting of yourself by stating your zeitgeist at your current age. Youth is defined mostly by potential. A young Julius Caesar's zeitgeist statement (ZS) will differ from that of an older Julius Caesar who came up with "Veni, vidi, vici." Longer is not better. Extra points for brevity. Assume the monument others build to celebrate your time upon the planet provides a limited amount of space, an amount provided equitably to all, to house their ZS (Zeitgeist Statement) on their monument no matter how modest.
Per Federation custom, all graduates of the academy are expected to write a ZS which they may disclose to all or none. Fedcitz have a public profile that includes a field for their ZS. The only required fields are for legal name and birth number such that each person, even having the same name born on the same day, is uniquely identified. A person's birth number is the date of birth plus one digit, 1 for most which is assumed, but 2, 3, 4,... just in case another having the same name is born on the same day per Federation calendar.
When writing your ZS it is customary to start with "I" as the ZS is your narrative of Self as agent on the planet at the time stated, so date of composition goes with the writer's name. It may help to write a zeitgeist essay first, then boil it down to a statement. State your ZS in 256 characters or less:
Gaius Julius Caesar, 82 BCE: I must dominate all I survey and seize power for the greater glory of Rome. I will go forth to see what is for the taking and take what is before me. I will resort to anything for the sake of the commonwealth. [Based on JC quotes.]
Gaius Julius Caesar, 44 BCE: Veni, vidi, vici.
Robert Eric Lee, 69 AA: I'm a double doomer (Maltusian and Calhounian) who self-describes as a cornucopian optimist. Like all who serve the industrial society they depend on, I'm a pathogen who swims (for a time before death) in a sea of error, ignorance, and illusion.
Feb. 2024, 256 characters: I'm a double doomer (Malthusian and Calhounian) who self-describes as a cornucopian optimist. Like all domesticants who serve the industrial society we depend on, I'm a pathogen who swims (for a time before death) in a sea of error, ignorance, and illusion.
And Your ZS?
Your name and birth date will enable descendants, if any, to identify you. The data will be sent to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway which also stores information, when 1,000 ZSs have been submitted, and so will not be publicly accessed during any submitters lifetime. Your ZS may be of interest to historians if not to descendants. There is a check box to allow sharing of your ZS with others today, but without your name/birth number.
Share Your ZS (now or with posterity)
Email/site optional, but as others may have your name, DOB required ID for posterity.
If sharing anonymously, only ZS and date of ZS may be posted.
And the voluntary ZSers are:
- 11iX70: Listen to Nature. Tell better stories. Live long and prosper.
