Okay...nobody asked me, but great post!

Much of your post focuses on one of the most salient points the Tofflers wickered into Future Shock, way back in 1970, in which they wrote:

"The illiterate of the 21st Century will not be those who cannot read and write. It will be those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn."

It stuck with me when I read it for the first time, while still a sophomore in college. It stuck with me and became my beacon of sanity. I would love to report that it always worked. (It didn't) But it got me through 22 years in the Marine Corps, a second corporate career and now a third as an author and occasional contrarian.

The Tofflers weren't specifically talking about relationships, but in 20-20 hindsight, I suspect Heidi, at least, saw the handwriting on the wall. (She was a heavy collaborator on her husband's work, even though Alvin was the author of record). Everything happens in a context and so many of us are guilty of stubbornly clinging to "our rock," while someone on shore is shouting, "drop the rock, you'll swim better." To which, unfortunately, too many of us shout back, "but it's my rock."

There are so many outdated principles to which we cling because they're familiar, rather than continued efficacy. Oddly enough, history offers us perspective, if only we remembered it. I have come to believe that evolution demands one foot in our past, drawing on the lessons our yesterdays offer and a hopeful foot in tomorrow, with cautious excitement in pioneering our way through an unknown, rather than pushing the same button that no longer works.

Again, great post, Simon. Write on!

Dirk