FUTURE SHOCK | Path of least resistance
Soon, we will be a planet filled with obese and lazy people. High tech has done that a decade ago.
Soon, we will be a planet filled with obese and lazy people. High tech has done that a decade ago. I had a column for an entertainment magazine called GLITTER. Initially I wanted my column to be called ROADKILL.
Since I was a big bike-riding writer. But my editor who had the final say made it into KOFFEE KLASH (no accounting for taste). Sometimes you’re saddled with an editor whose aesthetics does not match yours but those are the breaks. Anyways, I’d type my piece on a typewriter and then go all the waaaaaay to the head office in Pioneer Street in Pasig. Walk three flights of stairs (or was it two? Bad memories fog my recall abilities. It’s a personal coping mechanism so please excuse me). And physically hand it in. Since I live all the way in Manila, the whole enterprise took 45 minutes. And I was already using a motorcycle. Imagine if I was driving a car. The sweat and effort of maneuvering in between vehicles both big and small; factor in the humid weather…presto! I’m lighter by a pound or a pound and a half.
The sheer amount of physical effort needed to submit it, contrast it to today; now, I just use my android phone with text capability. Then send it thru a messenger app. Editor says “thanks”. Its’ done! All in the comfort of not leaving my La-Z-Boy while waiting for the latest streaming season of COBRA KAI.
Physical movement minimized to the hilt. All in the locale of my own choosing. Oh, I need a background data on some historical fact—I’ll just Google or Wikipedia it. Before, you do the legwork. You pound the pavement. You go to the library, and index the damn bloody thing. Kids will laugh at how backward that is. Yes, it’s too hard and too primitive. But you learn something with that too. It teaches you to be more creative in pursuing knowledge.
Teaches you to be more resourceful, too. And you might stumble on secondary information that has nothing to do with your subject matter but in some strange alchemical way, is connected to it or makes you see the topic in an entirely new light.
Using search engines will give you specific data. And since everyone is using it, chances are the data you get is the same data that everyone has. Nothing new. All generic. Let that sink in.
At the height of its powers, the Roman Empire conquered the known world. But nothing screws up a good thing better than success. They became complacent, comfortable, content. They splurged on the easy lifestyle.
Gorging on feasts, then to the vomiting rooms and back for more. Broken only by evening orgies. They became soft, pudgy, content. What do you think happened next? Soon, they were conquered by the Goths and the Vandals. That’s where humanity is headed now. We hate hardwork. And high tech is doing the heavy lifting for us.
I bet sometime in the future they’d even come up with a way that will minimize or eradicate the physical effort needed in sex. A new app or a program would probably replace it. Downloadable. Could even be a freeware.
Who knows? But not for me. I still prefer the grunting and humping and sweating part. Call me old fashioned but I like to get my hair mussed. Know what I mean? Cheers!
