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| Credits to Lou for the photo |
Often, the contemporary age seems to be an endless subject of comparison to the times when the Cyberspace was just a dream, when Apples, Blackberries, and Cherries were once just fruits and when Java was once just an island we seldom give a care.
There are whiles when our grandparents brag with jubilation their experiences from the past when they would receive piles of poetic love letters heaping it in their wooden trunk for safekeeping, that time when serenade was too mainstream as part of winning the hearts of our culturally- inclined women and when children pleat in loamy acreages at night to draw circles out of water sprinkles, roaming around its rims while enjoying the perfect luminescence showered by the moon up from the heavens. The smears of sepia in their glossy photographs juxtaposed their grandiose and effervescent past. Circumstances like these bring us to a point where we stop, ponder upon and ask, “Were our forefathers who lived lives out from simple joys less exultant than us who witness the stunning speed of technological development?”
The first decade of the new century seems to mark a new frontier which had been the product of men’s embryonic inquisition of knowledge throughout the years. From minute discoveries to thorough scientific study rises a whole brand new age which still is at its infant juncture and may progressively reach its zenith for decades to come. But before the breakthrough of perfect modernization we revel in these days, did you know that life before could be an agony in our part? For instance, horse- drawn trolleys, instead of four- wheeled taxicabs were the chief means of transportation- not to mention the tons of manure it produce every day; corporations manually operate businesses allowing executives and staffs be filled with goose bumps for possible losses at large; the indistinct sound of over-sized walkie talkies allowed only short ranged communications with expensive telegrams via telegraphs as chief medium for overseas calls; men who hunger for knowledge also have to stay ablated with books and paperback novels at arched libraries to plant jiffies of information in their seamlessly keen minds. For us who treat computers as a vital commodity, life without it would send us to an episode of pandemonium.
Having been pictured out how is it like on the past, let’s take a glimpse on what the world would be like in the future. In the nonfiction book, “The Way We Will be 50 Years from Today: 60 of the World’s Greatest Minds Share Their Vision of the Next Half Century”, 60 specialists offered their forecasts as to what the world will consist of 50 years from now. Although the future will remain a mystery, all specialists agree upon one absolute: change will occur. Vint Cerf, also known as the “Father of Internet” explains that the humanity will soon be dependent in technology and human interaction will soon be taken for granted. Borders will also be meaningless for information flows. Any attempt to stop audio, video, and data from moving anywhere at any time will be hopeless. With rapid technological development, the devastating environmental destruction will also be lessened as humans will always adapt to changes for survival. The discovery of stem cells would also provide interest to future scientists which will lead to better quality and longevity of lives in the future. Parkinson's disease, diabetes, heart failure, cerebral palsy, heart disease and host of other chronic ailments will also be curable soon.
Fifty years from now, we might just be sitting on our flying wheelchairs, hands trembling while scanning at its embedded photo browser reminiscing our once lively past. There might be no more smears of sepia and piles of poetic love letters but our colorful HD photos, seamless video streams and tons of romantic emails are enough to serve as brush strokes for the canvas we soon will paint in our minds on that day. Our grandchildren would just laugh at what we brag in them as sure enough as they live in a world different from us. After all, we would just also end up laughing at them with our minds covered with nostalgia for the sweet ephemeral stay we have had.
