One
of the benefits of old age is an accumulation of wisdom gleaned over years of
living the life.
One
of the negatives of old age is an assumption that when criticisms surface it’s
just ‘an old
man’s
take’ on a changing world. It’s like being caught betwixt and between your
reality and everyone else’s.
Having
said that…I think living in our world today is like riding a roller coaster blindfolded
and without a safety harness. It’s a kaleidoscope full of fluff and deception
that can make your stomach spin. An environment where everyone seems to be
angling to get into your pocketbook, influence your mind and move you in their
direction.
Simply
look around and you’ll realize you’re in the consumer bullseye for everything
from music to skin cream. It’s isn’t your parent’s black and white monotone
world any more. This is where age hampers that realization because it is
neither good nor bad; it is simply a fact of life. The world is changing at
such a rate that the only constant is change itself.
So
despite risking the chance I’ll be labeled an old man mumbling I’d like to
examine a few aspects of the world we live in today. Let’s look at it honestly
and without valuation. Then decide what you like, are willing accept or want to
change. And ultimately how do you learn to deal with it.
National
and local news outlets have become a cash-strapped commodity meant to attract
eyeballs and no longer advance the art and science of journalism. The honorable
world of journalism as I knew it growing up no longer exists.
National
news is now mostly fluff. It’s an ad-filled half hour of sound bites designed
to make us worry more about our health (via the pharmaceutical industry),
believe politicians (via their lobbyists) and fret about the fate of our
planet. Weather reports are disguised as news. Self-promotional business
packages are fed to the news departments who are too understaffed to create
their own news segments.
Print
newspapers are struggling to find their way in this new era of instant
‘breaking news.’ Yet some of the most egregious offenders are the pretend
internet news sites that offer up a mixture of advertisements disguised as news
articles along with meaningless pap mean to titillate the senses and collect
eyeballs. Magazines fare no better.
Cable
is a stumbling dinosaur. It’s inflexible scheduling and viewing options are
being threatened by mobile devices, streaming video, internet options, apps
and a growing consumer dissatisfaction with the bland tasteless programming
being offered.
The
world of politics has become so jaded with vested interests and partisan
politics that consensus is nearly impossible on most relatively simple
policies.Worst yet, money talks and yet nobody is actually listening.
Alvin
Toffler called it the ‘third wave.’ In retrospect, he was dead right and
couldn’t have been more wrong. With the arrival of the microchip and digital
information technology our world was about to change…exponentially. Between
1990 and 1995 there was a tidal wave of digital products and new experiences
that were to affect almost every aspect of our daily lives.
I
was one of the first believers and converts. I read everything I could on this
new computer technology. My kids had a Macintosh at home to do their grade
school homework. They would be prepared for a whole new world opening up before
their very eyes. It was my business to make sure that Sharden Productions, Inc.
was using this new technology to stay ahead of the game. I devoured the new
magazines and collected articles of relevance to my new ventures into cyber
space.
I
tried to ride that North Shore wave of bites and bytes but it kept pushing me
further and further behind until I was back among the masses, lost amid the
conflicting claims and acclaimed benefits of this new technology. Now I’m content
with my Windows 7, won’t touch Windows 8 and am suspicious of Windows 10.
So
what happened to that ‘new economy’ as predicted? The promise of the
information revolution has been shattered into a million pieces of economic and
social reality.*
The
new economy wasn’t a ‘new economy’ after all. The old mantra of ‘e-business or
out of business’ was premature. More money has been lost in computer technology
ventures than has been made. On-line shopping hasn’t erased bricks and mortars.
We still crave the ‘touch and feel’ of hands-on shopping instead of the ‘fill
my cart’ and ‘press here to pay’ buttons on our computer screen. Only a few
companies now stand at the pinnacle of success while hundreds if not thousands
of others are still struggling to stay alive in a constantly changing business
environment.
Despite
the ‘new’ which is increasingly looking like the ‘old,’ there is still hope.
High-energy entrepreneurs with new ideas can still get their turn at bat. While
the old days of ‘garage to global’ are almost over there are still a myriad of
opportunities for those daring pathfinders willing to take a chance and risk it
all for a chance at that mythological gold crown in the cyber sky.
The
Internet was supposed to create a world community. It did and it didn’t. The
term community has taken on a new and interesting moniker in the digital age.
Community is now defined as any group of any size with any common interest.
Just peruse Facebook and look at the numerous and sometimes bizarre groups
gathered there.
The
other side of that ‘community’ coin has proven to be spot-on. I am now able to
review playbills from the Knightsbridge collection of theaters. I can check in
with fellow western writers from Australia. I can wander down Streetview over
the old familiar cobblestone streets around the Amsterdam train station where I
used to hang out. The planet and universe has morphed into my world with a
simple click on my keyboard.
The
digital age was supposed make us all smarter. Not true. Today’s kids aren’t
really tech-savvy as much as they are just button-savvy. Few of them know or
even care what’s going on inside their smart phone or video game console. They
just know how to turn the machine on.
Fortunately
my grandchildren have their screen-time rationed at home. Outdoor activities,
reading and sports take precedent over video games and television watching.
The
Internet was also supposed to make us better informed. This takes me back to my
earlier comments about the news media and the rocky road they’ve put us all on
just to get some semblance of news.
Despite
the many failings of the new Information Revolution there have been some
wonderful changes to embrace. This reached home when I returned to my two
original westerns written back in 1974 and 1975. With new scanning technology I
was able to change those old gray pages into screen pages which I could easily
rewrite and manipulate. About that same time, Create space, a company owned by
Amazon, became one of the first POD (print on demand) publishers in the world.
It has become a true double-edged sword.
The
old prediction that anyone and everyone could become a publisher has proven to
be true. Unfortunately along with the ease of publication came a tsunami of
books, both print and electronic, that has totally engulfed the reading world.
Without the East Coast guardians of print to check for editing, plot
development and other pre-publication standards, the quality of these new books
flooding the marketplace is questionable at best. It’s nearly impossible to
find footing in this new flood of vernacular mud and it’s only getting worse.
The
new task ahead for any writer will be to manage and maneuver through this sludge
pile of distractions to try to find footing and grow an audience. Working
smarter and harder will be the new moniker for these new publishing explorers.
Despite
the failed predictions of the new Information Revolution there have been many
improvements in our lives. There is much to embrace and welcome as change. But
in the end it all circles back to the very core of our being and what makes us
happy and content as human beings. Those old truisms born of older generations
have never changed they’ve just been covered with a vapid cloak of ‘new.’ The
old is still the most honest.
·
Your
health is your own responsibility and no pill will take the place of common
sense.
·
Most,
if not all, of the true treasures in life are free and found all around us.
·
Often
times the simpler the life the richer and more diverse it is.
·
The
answer is not out there. It is inside your head.
So
for all the changes swirling around us the old can still be relevant and
important in our lives.
Self-direction,
self-control and personal responsibility are still the monikers of all of us to
wear. It’s a brand new world. But then it’s always been a brand new world just
depending on which generation you’re talking to.
I
want to embrace some of the new, hold on to some of the old and have fun doing
it. Life is too short for anything else.
*Many
of the points of the ‘Information Revolution’s Broken Promises’ were taken from
an article by Karl Albrecht which
appeared in the March-April, 2014 issue of The Futurist Magazine.
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