YOU NEED EXPERIENCE FOR THE JOB...

The changing nature of change.


Sometimes I really love being alive in the 21st century. When I was a kid back in the 80s and 90s I would get dropped off at my aunt's, and we would watch Back to the Future, Terminator, and other movies that had something to say about 'The Future.' All the flying cars and self-drying clothes, human-intelligent machines, in addition to Star Trek: TNG pumped me with so much enthusiasm for the future that I actually threw nasty tantrums at the fact the future couldn't come fast enough.

At the dawn of 2010, not only has my enthusiasm been fulfilled several times over, I am experiencing what could only be called 'Future Shock.' I am living in an age where I can enjoy the fruits of a Harvard education without having to pay for it, by downloading Harvard Idea Cast onto my iPod touch. Listening to these podcasts not only has me feeling good about myself- I have a Harvard podcast in my pocket, fancy fancy - I am filled with renewed confidence in the intellectual caste of the USA.

Here why I like listening to these podcasts. They explain in great ways how change keeps on changing faster. If I had a dime for as many times as I've heard this from older management guru's I'd be able to pay their bonuses. What does this mean, change keeps changing faster? Or: We live in an age of great change. Heck, even Alan Greenspan titled his recent book "Age of Turbulence."

Let me see if I get this right. How exactly is change changing faster? I would assume, basic physics being what it is, that we would need some reference point to judge the acceleration of change, right? Hmmm. So change is changing faster in an economy that calls itself capitalist. Invariably I have found that the reference points they use to judge change is that which does not change- the past. Judging movement into the future by cross-referencing it with something that moves at absolute ZERO boggles my mind. Why should this age of iPods be anymore turbulent than the day Nero watched Rome burn while playing his fiddle?

Don't kid yourself. If you are reading this and you are between 18-100 at least ONCE in your life you have heard what a 'rapid age' of change we are living in. Think about how silly this sounds coming from people with salaries in the 6 figures, if not more. What exactly changed? Did iPods disrupt my life in the freemarket? Or even computers? Well here's why I think nothing's has changed.

-Anyone that has read a history book will find this commonality: people are always baffled by the future because they are too busy looking into the past. So no wonder change hits you like a brick wall if you are driving forward looking into the reverse mirror.
-Anyone that has read old books will also find this in common: nearly always the Elders and the people that aren't Elders (but want to be Elders)always say that 'things were simpler' in the past, there were more certainties to life, and its all gone now.
-If things were so great in the past where did Bolsheviks come from?
-If the baby boomers did things so well how come their children and grand children get poo-pooed so often as being morally lost?
-If the greatest generation was so great, why the rush to intern Japanese, shove indians on reservations, and so on? I would think that if things came to such a head that pure evils like Nazi Germany under Hitler that something went wrong in the leadership caste of the age to allow Hitler's stormtroopers to rise in the first place.

And no finger pointing please. Finger pointing can go on all day long. If we were to finger point each other for the problems of our age and past ages, we might as well just make it easier on ourselves and blame Adam and Eve for being gullible enough to eat fruit from a tree. It would be too much to ask for us as a civilization to "get over it, and move on," because someone somewhere has to make a quick buck either from book sales or a speech on a college campus wherein it is Thus Spake: Change is changing faster and the new generation is not up to the task.

Don't kid yourself, no matter how old or young you are, you've heard this before, things were better in the past and we've lost our way and the change we are living in is baffling. Better hold on tight or else the Earth will spin faster.

Change is not changing faster, the only thing that is going on is what we call experts, patriarchs, elders, however you want to call them because nearly every society has them, have completely lost touch with common sense. Thats it. Of course its easy to point to the immovable past and say it was better then than it is now and that for whatever reason the younger generation has lost its way morally. Plato's Republic said as much.

I would think we wouldn't be so anxious about the future if we stopped to consider that 100 years from now they'll say we had a simpler way of life that was easier to understand. What does that say, other than that NOTHING really changes with mankind except its institutions?

I am really disappointed that we have people in charge of positions of such critical importance, like Deans of Universities, top management consultants, CEOs, and so on, people with positions of the utmost importance, going around saying they are baffled by change.

If you are not one of these people I would be scared. Because what this says is that the people that are driving the bus of society have no idea where they are going because clearly they have no idea where they came from. And they cover up that insecurity by banking on the quick fix of pointing to change, like its some golden goose, to cover up simple incompetence and the fact they don't know history any better than the young they degrade over and over again.

If change is changing faster I can rationalize any sort of action or inaction without a shred common sense. People, be scared. The elites of this country do not have a shred of wisdom and we will pay for it.