/lit/ - Literature

Critique the opening bit of a science fiction novel I'm writing. Be mean, be nice, whatever. Yeah I know writing a novel, much less a science fiction novel, is pretentious but fuck it:

At the time these events came to pass I had no understanding of them, let alone of their significance. Some may call it fate, others damn fool chance, but either way the Leavetakings have left their mark upon me. The first ships launched the year of my birth, beginning the standard two year cycle we now know. For a child all this was peripheral, noise beyond the far side of attention. Yes, I remember the frantic news, the competition, the worry, the eventual violence, but it did not concern me. The grace of youth disparages all but the most immediate dangers; long term survival is not a possible conception then. I suppose I am the last of the First now, may Waheguru forgive me. So many others deserved to live, not me.