& then life changed…

Thought trails keep latching on while doing the most mundane of things and I for that among other reasons love those mundane things. Everything seems to have become busier and I do mean everything; do you remember those computers which ran on 433Mhz or trunk calling? When was the last time you saw a black & white tv or even saw a tv with an antennae sticking out of it? When was the last time you saw a car without an electronic panel or buttons plugged all over the dash board? Everything seems be getting more and more powerful (and getting smaller too!), we’re packing everything with more capabilities – even todays weighing machines seem to have enough ‘intelligence’ to tell you certain diets you should follow! In between all this, we expect ourselves to multitask more and more too; we’ve moved onto multitasking faster in thought too if you realise it. The scary part in all this is we take it to be normal but that I’ll save for another day.

Have you noticed that certain inventions and innovations have hastened evolution over a period of time? These spurts of evolution are brilliant in their own right when you think of it – I can’t fathom the impact of the wheel & the combustion engine on development right through the industrial revolution (revolution is a good term for it when you think about it) or the changes the electric bulb did to the world. They seem to skewed the natural progression of evolution to have spurts of greater speed and collective moved humanity to get to a place faster than it would otherwise have. Its like reaching a place a week earlier than when we should have ideally got there. (Questions arise in my head on whether this is a good or bad thing, on how we would have been had we reach ‘on time’ and if what would it have been that we expected against what we see and have, having reached earlier). If Glieck had anything to say, he would come over and chat up on a certain pattern even in this and I guess he would have something there.

I’m also currently having arguments with myself on whether or not technology is actually directing us to evolve towards something or vice versa. I’m inclined to believe or hope atleast that I have some power over what I would like to turn into (pun intended – too many comic books do that to your imagination) but I’m actually overwhelmed on that ground by the force and vastness of the armoury technology has in its dungeons and godowns. So it would be safe to say that anyone enough electric activity between the ears can figure where we are actually heading and doing a little algorithm also tell you in what state we’d be when we get there.