2005 is drawing to a close, and I cannot believe how time flies. We live in such a different world today. Even seven or eight years back, none of us could have imagined the speed with which technology would evolve. What seemed like magic even 10 years back is reality now, to a point where we take it for granted.
Example? When I was a little kid, I always dreamed of a magic machine - You could feed any question into it, and it would give you the answer instantaneously and I could magically learn about everything in the world. There would be no mysteries anymore. It didnt take long for the "magic" machine to evolve. Its simply a computer with a browser in which you type www.google.com. If there is any topic in the world, chances are some person in some corner of the planet has already thought about it and also posted something online, and google fetches it for you. Simple huh? Its no longer magical, and if google takes more than a second to return search results, I am already pounding my fists with frustration.
Which brings me to my next subject - Frustration. Agony. Aggravation. With all these big advances and changes, are we really happier? Consider advances in the field of medicine and packaging technology. There are atleast a 100 medicines easily available for different combinations of cold-cough-headache. Packaging technology has evolved to create safe medicine bottles that children cannot accidentally open. The result? Tylenol has desgined a cough medicine bottle soooo safe, even adults cannot open it. I spent an agonizing 30 minutes a few nights back desperately trying to figure out the childproof bottle cap with no success.
There are hundreds of cable tv channels. Comcast also has a super cool on-demand promotion where you can watch hundreds of movies with the click of a button, with rewind and fastforward features available. So did I have a fun weekend watching TV? No. I couldnt decide on a single program to watch, and I turned off the TV and blogged instead.
I bought a GPS to make sure I did not get lost during my road trip. Did it keep me safe and happy? Safe yes. Happy? Well, I did not really look out of the car window because I was too busy trying to fiddle with the instructions and make the darned thing work.
I stood in line to pay for 100 hours of dial up internet access at the VSNL office six years back, and I used to patiently wait all night to download one mp3 file. Today, if the transfer rate on my highspeed internet connection is anything lesser than a zillion megabytes per second, I lose patience and call customer service.
I read atleast five women's magazines december issues. Every single magazine was filled with tips on how to beat "holiday stress". For weeks, my coworkers asked me anxiously if I had prepared for the holidays (like an exam?).
Where are we heading in this super fast world? Are our lives really better? Or is it time to rexamine the truth in the phrase "the simple life"?
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3 comments:
so, the ancient indian phrase.....simple living and high thinking........ does make sense, after all ??
Awesome stuff Lazy Blogger ! You're 100% correct ! Remember , we used to write down names of songs, record tapes and would get so happy when we could buy a new casette ! Now life comes to a stop when the I-pod does not work !
Also, when we liked the lyrics of a song, we would rewind, pause and play till we could write it down clearly ! Now .....just gotta put it in google
And Sunanda, remember, I used to keep telling you, that you should become a journalist? I now have the pleasure of reading your blog!
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