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WHEN I WAS SEVENTEEN
Sunday May 29, 2016
Coke, or Pepsi?
When Tofler gave us Future Shock it was difficult to comprehend. Imagine Tofler understanding Facebook and SnapChat? Of course – he would see, we CAN COPE with exponential change. We ARE the change, as surely as McLuhan described, we’ve leapt beyond Naisbitt’s Megatrends, realizing he never envisioned streaming news or virtual reality.
When will it stop? Well, it won’t. It can’t. Baby-boomers, our finest work not in the 60s, 70s, 80s – Pepsi-generation morphed to geriatric medicine. What will our 70s, 80s and 90s bring?
More intelligent, more health conscious, more information-savvy than any aging-raging force in history. Living longer, better, smarter, richer than any generation ever has. And the next generation will feel the same way. They’ll be right, as we were.
One thing follows the other.
Post hoc, ergo propter hoc – after it therefore because of it.
We’ve transcended instant, gone beyond instant gratification, short-cuts everywhere – robot vacuum cleaners, drive-by drive-through surf-through – whether or not we want fries with that.
Virtual reality became reality.
Remember when instant coffee was new? When Kool-aid, Tang, Polaroids, credit cards, roll-on deodorant, bubble-wrap, Velcro, the pill, the microwave and ultrasound – were our next new things?
Cassettes, hand-held calculators, the computer mouse, HTM, MTV, ATM’s and DNA. Video games, Cabbage Patch dolls, floppy disks, genome, post-it-notes?
Prozac and Viagra’s inventors weren’t born yet.
I grew up during the fifties and sixties, when ‘instant’ became a thing. Then fast food. Fax machines. Cell phones. Emails. Texts. Instagram, Snapchat … tempus fugit.
Collectively, we are Columbus setting sail, in search of newness, knowledge and treasure – hundreds of millions, they all look seventeen. Innovating every day, leaping society forward to make everything happen faster, better, simpler and more effectively than ever – yet our exploration of unknown frontiers mix fears, ignorance and guesswork – oceans, space, brains – infinite complexities.
Far more unknown than is known.
Advancement of intelligence, technology – relentless pursuit of meaning and purpose in life will drive that next-new-thing you read or hear about on TEDtalks – to soon be yesterday’s news because there are younger and younger, better and better, leading edge innovators in a valley somewhere …
Old enough to ride a bike but not old enough to drive, drink or vote – they are reshaping our future more our wildest dreams, only to be eclipsed next year by someone younger, smarter, luckier.
Well, it’s inevitable – so whether it is anything but a mix of good and bad (whatever those words mean to you) is interesting debate. Not productive, but entertaining.
Innovations top innovations.
What comes next?
I remember simpler times, what was better about them, what prompted these ruminations of past and expectations of future?
A friend is celebrating his 65th next week. I’m not far behind. On my table, sit forms to be filled – applications for my government pensions – my next new things.
Bearing-down on my milestone of agedness I’m caught in this state of illogical denial. I know I’m aging at the same pace everyone is, but wishing for a re-start, to be seventeen again …
No reason I can imagine, that I can’t think like and adopt new ideas like a teenager.
I can, because we are the Pepsi generation.
For my birthday?
I want a time machine, or maybe a virtual reality helmet …
written / published from Calgary, AB
morning walk: 14C/58F, sunny and calm, Gusta romping (maybe her leftovers breakfast of shanghai noodles/veggies/steelhead was inspiration), Sunday-quiet, the type of morning that looks so delicious you could eat it with your fingers ..
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