Kids today… (in the Assyrian Empire, 2800 BC)

(Photograph ©Alistair Gentry)

“Our Earth is degenerate in these later days; there are signs that the world is speedily coming to an end; bribery and corruption are common; children no longer obey their parents; every man wants to write a book and the end of the world is evidently approaching.”

From an Assyrian clay tablet, circa 2800 BC. The Assyrian Empire’s capital (Nineveh, now gone but the site is adjacent to modern day Mosul in northern Iraq) was captured over two thousand years later by a loose alliance including Babylonians, Cimmerians and Scythians. We should all be so lucky as to have our civilisation take so long in (supposedly) degenerating. Ashur-uballit II held onto one last city as a bastion of Assyrian culture for a while, but the empire was finally overcome in its entirety by Babylon in 605BC. The empire ended and was replaced by another, but the world didn’t end. Some useful perspective for all the middle aged-to-elderly whiners who say the world isn’t what it used to be, that the interests and recreations of young people don’t bear comparison to those of one’s own youth, or that basically everything has turned into a load of shit since they were young.

Well, guess what? The world has always been ending and it’s always been mostly crap, teenagers have always been stupidly dressed, disrespectful pains in the arse and there have always been boring old farts who felt threatened by the energy and ambition of the young.

On the other hand, I totally understand my anonymous Mesopotamian colleague’s exasperation at everybody thinking they can and should write a book. Knock that shit off, nobody wants to read your pathetic attempt at writing a novel.