I’ve been trying to come up with something to make you smile or laugh. You know. Like the story of the elderly man who went to the doctor for a routine checkup. After running some tests, the doctor comes back into the exam room and tells the man he has some bad news.
“What is it?” the man asks. The doctor tells him he doesn’t have long to live. The startled man manages to stammer out, “how long?” The doctor looks at the second hand on his watch and begins counting backward – 10, 9, 8, 7, 6 … Funny, huh?
I know. Since I’m retired, you’re going to recommend I keep my day job. That’s all right with me. I got on Facebook a couple of months ago, and it’s taking up a lot of my time. My wife got on too, and I’ve hardly seen her since. I’m thinking of unfriending her to see if she notices.
Seriously, though, along with the virus, quarantining, social distancing, and that sort of thing, there has been so much gloom and doom in the news it’s hard to laugh lately: the virus; vaccine confusion; crazy weather; people out of work; businesses closed; schools closed; church via Zoom; mass murders; politics and government gone bonkers; police misconduct; insurrection; immigration; voter suppression; protest; and, did I leave anything out?
I probably did. There’s just too much to keep track of. The funny ha-ha of this moment is that it is all televised, or on some type of social media. For that reason, I guess, we can’t be sure if things have really gotten worse or if they are just reported more. It’s enough to put calluses on your brain. Maybe your heart, too.
I think we’re getting numb to all the stuff that’s happening. It’s as though we have to go through 9/11 every day. The group of things I mentioned earlier would be funny if they weren’t so serious. Underneath these things is a kind of generalized anxiety, a meanness. Half of us think we need to step into the distant past; the other half think we need to take a giant leap into an uncertain future. That leaves us pulling against one another.
Out of this tension, we are, in fact, writing our collective future. There are fundamental questions here. Who are we? Why are we here? Where are we going? These questions are as old as dirt. But I think they are still the right questions to ask in this time of doubt, confusion, and do-unto-others-before-they-do-unto-you.
You can laugh if you want to, but this is serious stuff. The main reason is time, or the rapid pace of change. For most of the millions of years of human existence, we were either hunter-gatherers or farmers. The Industrial Age was a blip. Now we’re living in a time where, if you tell a teenager how Superman always ducked into a phone booth to put on his tights, the kid will look at you like you’re crazy. “Phone booth? What’s that?”
Seriously. There are children these days who have no idea where eggs come from. In the 1980s, a 2G mobile phone was a rarity the size of a brick. One of the first of these “bricks,” a Motorola, cost about $4,000. Today, of course, cellphones are relatively inexpensive. What’s more, nearly 90% of Americans own at least one.
And they are not just phones. They are calculators, social media platforms, music platforms, calendars, cameras, notebooks, or other things I haven’t learned about yet. Plus, you can Google anything you want and, presto!, you get an instant answer.
The other day I heard about some tech companies that are racing to create, I think, microchips that can be implanted into the human brain. This artificial intelligence chip is supposed to able to control your thoughts, mood, knowledge base, or other brain functions. I think it’s called singularity.
The main problem with this type of technology is that it just might become smarter than human beings, smart enough to program itself to the point where it will no longer need human interaction. But they think they will have that problem figured out around 2050. Don’t laugh.
Anyway, I know I’ve rambled a bit today, but that’s how it is. If there is any point at all to this, it is that we’d better get our act together, and soon. It’s funny how time flies!
Have a nice day.
The Link LonkApril 21, 2021 at 08:00PM
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Primus Mootry column: It's funny how time flies - The Herald Bulletin
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Funny
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