3 of 6

Write now Article Tools

Page 2 of 2

man's chest. I don't know who owns the house now, but it is still there, a reminder of yesterday surviving the present.
Times change. It's inevitable. But my friend fears it.
Her history is a world filled with muse and culture where intellectuals search for meaning in life and artists vie for proprietorship of their souls. Hers is a history of individuals trying to establish a collective; a world where people read books, engaged each other in democratic discussion and challenged each other intellectually. She lived in a history where art was meaningful, nature essential and the creator, sacred. Hers was a world without the internet and wireless networks and mega pixel cell phone cameras: a world unfettered by microchips and sound bites, ADHD, LCD's and PS3's. And it..s frightening, naturally.

Her fear is a future when technology dominates all. A time when computer chips and GPS systems mimic cryptic scripture and when we as infants can no longer control the mechanisms we have created. Her fear is a generation who cannot comprehend literature or art, a time when people will forsake tradition altogether for something newer or more immediately satisfying. A future when her work for the world becomes obsolete.
But I offer you this, my friend.
The ancient Greek philosopher, Heraclitus once suggested that, as it regards to the constancy of change, ..One cannot step into the same river twice...
Change is imminent and every moment is just the next moment- it could not be more natural.
Remember Henry David Thoreau abhorred the sight of the locomotive as he watched it cut through his life. He saw this technology as unnatural; a blackened snarling beast that billowed smoke into a blue sky as it lacerated the landscape.
But he changed his understanding. He changed his perception of the natural. He realized that the elements, labor and hands that forged that iron horse were just as natural as anything else.
It was change. It was inevitable.
A person can fall in love with a period in life, a brief history, but time writes a new history every moment, and what can stop it? Didn..t Robert Frost remind us that ..nothing gold can stay..?
There is much we have no control over, but we persist despite. And even though the future may leave you questioning, don..t let the fear change you and what you do. I assure you my friend that despite the constancy of change, the future does not destroy the past entirely. Despite the computer age/ information super highway era of technological advancement that seems intimidating, I assure you that pieces of yesterday still exist. They are surviving in the present like that farm house on Linden Ave.
Radio did not kill theatre; television did not kill radio, and the internet has not destroyed television. Technology has not indentured nature and there is still meaning in art. There are still farmers who till the earth and herdsmen who gather the sheep. There are still fishermen and mariners of the sea. There are still poets and painters and actors for the stage.
There are still individuals trying to establish a collective and artists vying for proprietorship of their souls. There are still people seeking the stars for answers and reading the words of sages for guidance.
Times may change. But the future doesn't destroy the past, my friend.

Learn more about this author, Flash Clark.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

• << previous page
• 1
• 2

Add your voice

Know something about Reflections: Philosophy and computers?
We want to hear your view. Write now!