Watching the World Unfold
“All the world is a stage.” — Shakespeare
“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow! What a Ride!” — Hunter S. Thompson
“If you want the rainbow, you’ve got to put up with the rain.” — Dolly Parton
Life has been summed up by the greats in so many ways and I never thought about it until just now, but they all have something in common, perspective.
This ongoing series is my reprieve from the day’s challenges.
“May you live in exciting times.”
Despite what you may believe, this is NOT a well wish. One of my uncles served in the US Marines during Vietnam, and told me during his time in Asia, if someone said this phrase to you, they were not wishing you well, they were insulting you. When something is ‘exciting’ it’s the opposite of calm and planned life.
We as humans crave stability. We spend our whole lives searching for better ways to do things so that we can feel safe and secure. We have turned bullets to ballots with democracy and we have built massive libraries to house the stories of our greatness.
As of this initial writing (Dec 2019), we have been in what is called “the era of exponential technology.” It’s a time when robots, artificial intelligence, blockchain, IoT and more are merging to create ‘singularity’ and these technologies have evolved well beyond the science fiction from which we first started speculating and have become mainstream.
With every new era comes a level of uncertainty. I believe we can decide if these exciting times are an insult to our humanity or not.
*Just now publishing in Oct 2020 after the year of the global COVID pandemic and the extremely ‘exciting’ times.
Read “Watching the World Unfold” on a larger screen, or in the Medium app!
