Another birthday and another year's end are about to wash over me, and I've learned to not turn my back on the ocean, so, I'll start my reflections now.
How am I? Well, to scramble the Dylan lyric a bit, I coulda done better, but I don't mind. In all fairness, life and time have treated me pretty well, but I don't think I was prepared for the realities of aging. And I don't even mean just the physical parts. I mean the sense of time not just passing swiftly, but roaring by like a river at high tide in the middle of a hurricane sometimes. And the feeling of having being traveling across a vast territory so long it feels like I started the trip more than one lifetime ago.
As I write this, I can feel my parents' spirits somewhere saying, "so, NOW he gets it."
Anyway, the more interesting question is, how is the world, not how am I. And the answer is, holy crap, where do I start. Let me tackle one piece, for starters.
I'm enough of a geek to still be stunned at the thought that hundreds of millions of people are walking around right now with powerful computers in their pockets the size of a deck of playing cards, with built-in high-resolution video cameras, all connected to a planetary network. If I want to know who played the french horn intro to "You Can't Always Get What You want", I can look it up in about 20 seconds while I'm waiting for the elevator. (By the way, it was Al Kooper). I can watch videos of Martin Luther King's speeches while eating a sandwich at a cafe. And on and on.
Is this cool? Of course it's cool. Convenient? Absolutely. But here's my fear, my sense of some of the hidden costs - in some ways, all technological progress boils down to "faster and easier". I think of cars. I didn't drive or own a car till I was thirty years old. I walked. A lot. And not only was I slimmer and healthier, I also saw some really interesting things as I went from place to place. Things I miss now, as I drive by at seventy miles an hour.
Somehow I think there's a connection.
How am I? Well, to scramble the Dylan lyric a bit, I coulda done better, but I don't mind. In all fairness, life and time have treated me pretty well, but I don't think I was prepared for the realities of aging. And I don't even mean just the physical parts. I mean the sense of time not just passing swiftly, but roaring by like a river at high tide in the middle of a hurricane sometimes. And the feeling of having being traveling across a vast territory so long it feels like I started the trip more than one lifetime ago.
As I write this, I can feel my parents' spirits somewhere saying, "so, NOW he gets it."
Anyway, the more interesting question is, how is the world, not how am I. And the answer is, holy crap, where do I start. Let me tackle one piece, for starters.
Is this cool? Of course it's cool. Convenient? Absolutely. But here's my fear, my sense of some of the hidden costs - in some ways, all technological progress boils down to "faster and easier". I think of cars. I didn't drive or own a car till I was thirty years old. I walked. A lot. And not only was I slimmer and healthier, I also saw some really interesting things as I went from place to place. Things I miss now, as I drive by at seventy miles an hour.
Somehow I think there's a connection.
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