The World of 25 Years Ago, as Seen By a Young Man

JJ, somewhere around 1990ish.

I have lots of printed photographs of the "old days" but it's not easy to dig one up from real (i.e. "non-virtual") storage. This fuzzy "picture-of-a-picture" will have to serve for now as a representation of the 27 year old John Janaro.

Young Janaro's journal is now a quarter century old. In September of the year 1990, while still in graduate school, I began what no doubt would have been a blog if such things were possible back then.

In fact, I never dreamed there would be anything like the media access we have today. I never thought I would have the chance to experience the instant gratification of vanity that blogging affords. Still, my journals were similar to my blog in that they were a kind of "workshop" for putting thoughts and words together.

Below is the introductory "Statement" to those pages, written probably on September 5, 1990. I don't know if I had plans to experiment with a genre or whether I was hoping—being a bright young man and all that, who expected to play a big role in the future—that posterity would benefit from my observations.

In retrospect, it's clear that my life hasn't been nearly so "interesting" (thank God for that!). But what strikes me 25 years later about these ruminations is that the basic content—the same overarching themes—remain relevant to the circumstances of the world today.

We humans are more dizzy than ever with the experience and the access to unprecedented power over the material world and even over many facets of our own humanity. We have more power, and are even more confused about how to use it well.

This is a long "statement," so here is Part I.

This would be very distressing if Young Janaro had nothing more to say, but he did. The "statement" is far from over, so look for it to be continued....