Making peace with life

Our daughter Emily has an expression that goes something like this: “Aren’t you glad we live in the future?”
She’s referring, of course, to those Jetson-like miracles we live with — and take for granted — each day that our parents and grandparents could barely dream of.
Most frequently, the phrase pops up when we’re video-conferencing.
Back in the Paleolithic era when I was in high school, we watched a series of films put out by Bell Laboratories, including one that forecast that — sometime in the future — people would actually be able to see one another during a telephone conversation.
Now, video-conferencing whether via Skype or Google or some other format is commonplace. And “film” is a term that needs to be explained to a generation that has only known digital photography.
It’s always been true that when one hits a certain age, not long after 40, that time seems to accelerate. These days, the pace of technology pushes the pedal to the metal even further, sending the acceleration into overdrive.
Two incidents this summer underlined that point.
The first was a news story out of Beloit College where a couple of professors work every summer to put together a reality check for faculty to help them prepare for the incoming freshmen class.
It’s not that the faculty is made up of old fogies, just that time and technology move so quickly.
After all, this fall’s freshmen were born about 1992. That means they’ve never lived in a world without the Internet, they’ve never lived without remote control TV (let alone color), the first president they remember is probably Bill Clinton.
Last fall, I spoke to a Ball State journalism class and found I had to explain the Soviet Union to them. For this fall’s freshman, the U.S.S.R. did not exist in their lifetimes.
Hard to believe, but true.
The second incident was a newspaper cartoon.
I’ve forgotten which comic strip it was, and it took me a second to get the joke.
Some young character was mocking the cluelessness of an older character and referred to a “grandpa box.”
What’s a “grandpa box” ?
It’s a personal computer.
That’s right.
The biggest symbol of changes in household technology in your lifetime is now derided as a “grandpa box.” To those younger and hipper and more techno-savvy, tablets and smartphones have taken its place.
The cartoon didn’t make me laugh. It made me sigh.
And it made me recall a group of students who toured the newspaper last spring and spotted a piece of rarely-used equipment that puzzled them.
“What’s that?” they asked.
It was an electric typewriter.
Their teachers and I sighed in unison on that one.
But on Saturday, I was happy to “live in the future” as Emily puts it.
That’s because Saturday was our grandson’s first birthday. And thanks to “living in the future” we were able to video-chat with the birthday boy to our heart’s content.
So while life in “the future” can be challenging, it beats the heck out of living in the past.[[In-content Ad]]