Nov 2, 2022
Yesterday Used To Be Enough
A Look Back At The Olden Days
I read something the other day, that was simple in its philosophy, while based on something quite big. It was an idea that discussed how different our minds once were, while comparing them from yesterday to today’s modern times. Since man’s first days on earth, compared to now, what are the scientific differences in one’s mind? There are so many things in today’s world, that a human being’s brain was never meant to comprehend. Of course, we may at first think of the world “evolve.” Assuming that our minds really have no option but to evolve as the world go through it’s never ending changes and developments.
I am far from being any type of scientist. All my education, was learned by just living my life. But this topic has always drawn interest out of me. Coming from a period that I did, I consider myself fortunate that I have been able to live on both sides on a certain kind of threshold. I was born in the mid 1970s, so that right there should explain a lot. I enjoy being able to do many of the comparisons that I can. Things like once being able to live without an air conditioner, to now, embracing air conditioning so well, that I don’t know if I could ever survive a NJ humid summer.
When the streetlight was our curfew…
I am able to reminisce about those “good ol days.” The ones where everybody’s phone, was the one rotary phone in the home. The one that was plugged into the wall, with a wire ten feet long. And that ten feet was as far as anyone could get. Nothing about it seemed abnormal to me.
I even laugh, when I tell stories about the olden days of phone calls. When the cost of your call, depended on the distance you were calling, as well as the time of day. Sometimes, people could be lucky, and get free phone calls after 9pm. Cell phones, still had a couple decades to become popular. And even beepers, were still many years away. Once in a while, the only fancy thing you could see, or learn about was the “car phones” that richer people might have.
As a kid, looking back, I can say that the neighborhood was nostalgic. The absence of communication devices like we have today, even mattered less, because socially, my neighborhood, plus many others, had similar aged kids in groups, living within walking distance of each other. So after school, and especially during summer vacations, we could either make a phone call from our house to yours. Or even simpler, just take a walk around the “hood” and you’d likely find a friend, or group, soon enough.
Can you readers believe that when I was a little kid, we had less than ten television channels that came in clearly. But at least those few channels were free. There wasn’t any such thing as cable TV. You stuck a big ugly antenna on the roof of your home, ran a wire to the TV, and like magic, that antenna would find those TV channels.
Let’s not also forget, that the majority of those channels like any other business, closed at the end of the day (late at night.) Opening back for business as daybreak approached. Each channel, turning on, and starting the days broadcast with a video montage of the national anthem.
If you were to turn on a television set, you would find mostly multi colored test patterns, or simple blinding static. There wasn’t a need for anything to be on TV, because back in those days, people went to bed at night.
While this may be just a brief rewind to those good old days, I continue to sit and wonder, how much change, can our brains actually go through? We must have had complex brains back in the day when VCR’s seemed magical, and computers were as big as a 50x100 square foot room. Just when it seemed like, the human mind was about maxed out on learning and knowledge, we all came to find out, our brain could handle much more.
If the change from then, to now, was by scientific standards pretty big, then how much more can a human mind progress? By now we have learned that major changes and advances do not take many decades. For some things, even just one decade is plenty of time. Is it just me? Or are there other people out there who think about this stuff?
I love today’s technology.
Just as much as I love how simple, times used to be.
Michael Patanella
is a Trenton, New Jersey Author, Publisher, Columnist, Editor, Advocate, and recovering addict, covering topics of mental health, addiction, sobriety, mindfulness, self-help, faith, spirituality, Smart Recovery, social advocacy, and countless other nonfiction topics. His articles, publications, memoirs, and stories are geared towards being a voice for the voiceless. Hoping to reach others out there still struggling.
