I have friends who long to live in other, so-called simpler times. One wishes he grew up during the cool 50’s. Another thinks that living in the wild west as a frontiersman is preferable to this frantic, hectic way of modern life. I myself think the roaring 20’s, before the stock market crash, must have been a very appealing time to live in. And the hippie side of me wishes I was old enough to experience the wild times of the 60’s.
But I feel very fortunate to be living in present. I was born right before man landed on the moon and am old enough to remember life without computers and the internet. Being a part of the computer age and watching how rapidly things are changing, it fills me with awe and amazement. I believe the internet is one of the major advances of civilization and being aware of that just adds to the excitement of living in this age.
I hope I never take for granted the ability of being able to write on these message boards and having people read my words, literally seconds after I write them. That the internet is becaming the most vast library in creation.
Sure there are plenty of things that dim the haze of my rose colored glasses but I’ve seen some pretty cool things happen throughout the last couple of decades. I feel proud to be a part this current era and can’t wait to see what lays ahead for us in the next few decades (if I make it that long).
Does anyone else feel the same way? Is it just me or does it feel like we’re living in a science fiction novel? Does anyone else feel the buzz of electricity that fills the air with constant possibilities? I feel like something huge and unknowable is heading our way, that something really major awaits us.
I remind you that “the buzz of electricity that fills the air with constant possibilities” feels exactly the same as the sensatio you get before being blasted out of existance by a bolt of lightning, and that the “something huge and unknowable” that is “heading our way” might very well be a freight train that we are standing right in front of, smiling & waving just before being squashed. :dubious:
Yes, my opinion would be that your friend is suffering from lack of imagination and generalized existential angst. Today is an awesome time to live (and if you sent him back to the Wild West, he’d stay there exactly as long as it took him to get a toothache).
It’s all subjective. Your friend who would like to live in the 50s is presumably not black. In the 50s, blacks had to worry about things like having a dozen smelly rednecks pull up in the middle of the night, drag your son out into the yard, and hang him. Boy, weren’t the 50’s fun?
I’m going to say what I always say in threads like these: Every time is the best of times if you’re determined that they should be. What I mean is,
Be happy with what you have.
Not happy with something? Change it.
Don’t look back, except in fond remembrance. If there were mistakes, work on fixing them. But you can’t change the past.
And look to making tomorrow better.
My concerns of today loom large until I realize that at least they don’t involve the knapping of flint or rubbing of sticks. I think it’s easy to romanticize the past, be it the prehistoric, wild west or 50s, but every generation will surely both encounter and create their own set of difficulties. If anything, we’ve traded a few monumental concerns for countless smaller issues so, in that regard, I suppose the past could be considered “simpler”.
I, personally, have heard enough about the 50s to be glad I misses them, being born in 1985. I have had to read soooo many idealized discribtions of those days to be thourghly sick of them. I have no desire to hide under my desk in nuclear warhead drills, watch innocent people gat dragged before congress because they might know someone that is a commie, or have a society that believes in blind faith in everything, from the goverment to the church to president. No thank you, I’ll take today.
It depends on who and where you are. On the whole, though, I’d say these have at least the potential to be the best of times. We have opportunities now that no one in the past had—including opportunities to learn from, and to recreate, at least some things about past eras, if we want to.
Charles Dickens would say it’s the best of times, it’s the worst of times.
Dennis DeYoung would say the best of times are when I’m alone with you.