TOO FAST
I have often heard it said that we are living “too fast” today. In fact, I have been guilty of saying it myself and believing it as I grow older. The more years on accumulates, it seems, the faster all of life seems to move toward its logical conclusion. It's true, I am convinced, but not, necessarily because one grows older, but for a variety of reasons.
Among them, the technological revolutions in which we have been involved in recent decades, have, literally, shortened the time previously spent in doing things. In my personal experience before I, like millions of other citizens of the world at large, became “google-ized, used to spend twice as much my my time doing research seeking facts which interest d or concerned me. I maintained several shelves of twenty-four EB volumes through which I delved for hours. Now, all that information, and more, is literally at my fingertips. With “google.com” as the keystone I have the world's best information at hand in minutes.
What would you say the leading subject would be when people turn google for guidance?
Those who keep track of such things, say it is the topic: ”health.” and that can be another reason why life seems to move along faster as we advance in years. We, in this in this generation of ours, probably, spend more time dealing with personal concerns of renewal and well-being than any before us. Eighty-five percent of the requests seeking information from google.com are said to be about “health.” Being far more concerned about our individual abilities to care for our bodies, we are paying more serious attention to the package in which our lives are contained. Instead measuring time by clock and calender, many people now measure life by remembering good times as those between cures and new illnesses.
We tend to “age” as those interludes shorten.
Still another reason why life seems to move along faster as we grow older is found in a paradox concerning the status of “youth” in today's scheme. We hear it said both ways: “Kids grow up sooner and faster today.” and “When are those kids going to grow up?” I prefer the first view. It is , obviously, true that our culture requires small children to assume adult standards far sooner than they were ever permitted to do a decade or so ago. Other than the use of brighter colors, perhaps, and louder music, it is difficult to tell the difference between films and disked games intended for children and for produced average adults. But it still seems that our television network heads think all children watch network TV on Saturday mornings. Chances are a hundred and something to four that they are elsewhere on the varied dial. We dress kids as miniature adults; we speak of , to and in-front-of (in their presence) in adult terms including profanity and other evidences of vocabulary poverty.
It is true that our children are growing faster today but the good feature about is that is that it is a normal growth caused by advances in technology in our time. The very same advances are speeding the life style we oldster,as well. Don't fight it Go with it.
Go with it. Yes. But, not lightly. We have been given the key to mankind's fund of knowledge and new responsibilities to use it properly and to the best advantage of all. That's no small order.
Your part? You are already at work doing it, which is why your time is passing so swiftly!
A.L.M. October 6, 2004 [c601wds]
