The significance of my time on Earth seems to be amped up to 11, due to bearing witness to history being made through my computer and Television set.
The times are always interesting to someone, and often to everyone - that’s my verdict after 50+ years on this Earth.
I think we’re just more aware what, exactly, makes our times interesting.
I’m also 36. I don’t feel the times will be “interesting” in the sense of the old curse until I’m forced to leave my home and possessions and start fresh in a strange place. And right now, that seems unlikely.
I really don’t want to associate too much with the curse… I wasn’t fully aware of it until after I posted this…
I forget who originally said: “Things aren’t getting worse, the news coverage is getting better.”
You are definitely living to see the greatest information revolution since… I don’t know. Maybe ever. Invention of writing? Invention of the phonetic alphabet? Printing? Telegraphy? Broadcast radio/TV? Our digital interconnectedness to the vastness of human knowledge and experience is mind boggling, and it has taken place in about 20 years. I for one feel fortunate to have seen it. YMMV.
Change happens faster than ever before. That’s interesting enough for me but you haven’t seen the pace increase the way I have. The rate of change should continue to increase. When it stops the most interesting time has just passed.
For those of you who don’t know, “Interesting times” refers to the oft-quoted ancient Chinese curse “May you live in interesting times”.
Akin to a question I once saw in an internet poll “Do you think a nuclear war would be kind of exciting?” You know, interesting times.
If you’re only 36, you’ve missed out on 35 years of “interesting times” that I have witnessed … all of the '50s, '60s, '70s, and a good chunk of the '80s … very interesting, indeed. But on the other hand, you’ll probably live a lot further into the future than I will, and will witness more interesting times that I can only imagine.
I thought the 60s and very early 70s were much more interesting than the last 40 years but that could just be me.
Those two decades were a big change from the 50s but the 50s were exceedingly dull in so many ways also.
The first time I flew in an airliner, I was 25, and it had propellers. The first time I diallled a telephone, I was 18. The first time I saw a TV set, I was 11. The first time I saw anything made of plastic, I was 10. Elvis Presley and Jack Kerouac came along when I was in high school. Photos in National Gegraphic were black and white.
Those were interesting times.
We definitely need a definition of interesting times for this discussion. I would guess the Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Great Depression, the Vietnam War would all be considered more “interesting times”.
OK, here’s a definition. When my dad was in school, nobody he knew had ever seen an airplane or a movie or heard a radio or talked on a telephone or had electric lights and appliances or rode in a car. By the time he was in his 20s, all those things had emerged before his very eyes, and became commonplace. Not to mention the First World War and then the Great Depression and then the Second World War, and the atomic bomb, all before he was 45.
Our OP, whose memory spans back to 1985, ain’t seen nothin’. Just a little fine tuning of what was already there.
The past 36 years haven’t been as ‘interesting’ as the periods of 1910 to 1946 or 1914 to 1950. For that we should be grateful.
Thank you for putting things in perspective, and also educating me more about the “curse”…
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Indeed. My dad was born in 1931 and lived in Eastern Europe until 1956. He lived in very interesting times, unfortunately.
It was he who said that, compared to what he’s lived though, Donald Trump is nothing to be worried about.
As a child my grandfather lived in a time of horses on city streets. He was an adult before cars became prevalent. He lived to see a man walk on the moon.
Of course he refused to believe we really went to the moon but that’s beside the point.
Yes, I’ve always thought that people born around 1900, and who lived for 70-80 years, experienced the most revolutionary, transformative, and significant technological developments…and wars, political leaders, and popular culture.
I’m pretty sure that you haven’t, in comparison to what’s coming up shortly. We’re probably headed for WWII levels of “interesting”, or worse.