Shut UP

Did I ever tell you how lucky I think I am? I know I complain a lot, but I do believe I’m very lucky.

I have these moments probably too many gazillion times a day, depending upon your time space continuum reference, where I think, wow, this sucks. Look how slow Chrome is loading. My God, it’s been like, thirty seconds.

Today I’m not having them. Today is the anniversary of the world wide web’s creation.

So, today, I’m just contemplating, what would I be doing without the web? I have to retreat back to 1990 to be in a time when I wasn’t using the web. We can thank Tim Berners-Lee for the advance that led to it, twenty-five years ago. Of course, some point to its limited accessibility and general struggles to connect, and dismiss this as the start of the web. That’s true, but I was online with AOL using the usenet and accessing forums in 1991. So it’s the start for me. Basically, I was on the Internet. The web was an improvement and expansion. Think of it as analogous to any invention. The basic thing, like the car, was created, but not many used and trusted it because it wasn’t hospitable. But improvements were made, and boom, here we are in the western world, paying $28,000,000 for an old Ferrari at an auction, or 1.6 million big ones for a new Ferrari LaFerrari hybrid.

Thus this triggers a review and meditation about the changes and progression. Where would I be without…? 

Air conditioning.  I once read, and I don’t know where or if it’s true, that places like Phoenix, Las Vegas and Miami would be barely settled if not for air conditioning. The article had stats about the growth, anecdotes about improved technologies, and charts demonstrating how the technological a/c advances and Miami’s growth were in parallel. It seemed pretty compelling to me.

I can tell you, that sitting outside in the shade in 104 degrees F (about 40 C, I think), dripping like a melting ice cream cone, it’s a lot different without a/c.

But what of refrigerator and freezers? That’s another item modern Americans like me take for granted, but it’s pretty damn compelling that it’s made a huge difference, as have mechanized transportation, like cars, trucks, aircraft, and marine conveyances. But thinking of those, we must think of pasteurization and bottling, canning, packaging, and processing.

Then my mind starts spinning out of control trying to contemplate life without electricity, because my understanding is that much of the previous advances are dependent on electricity and what it brings to the forum.

Which takes me into a surreal circle. I’m in the coffee shop, on the second floor, above the enclosed swimming pool. Glass windows let in huge expanses of natural daylight while keeping out the hot air. Music is playing over speakers. The baristas tell me it’s digital FM. The room is well lit. A/c cools my back from an overhead vent. I don’t know where my coffee was picked, or roasted, but I know it wasn’t in this coffee shop’s backroom.

They have a display case of food up front. Refrigerated and lit, sandwiches, paninis and wraps are on display. And I’m on a wireless laptop computer writing this. Meanwhile, I know from looking at the building that a great deal of their energy sources come from solar panels on their roof.

Let me tell you, too, that spinach and feta sandwich on a croissant looks wonderful. But because I’m so lucky, I have a damn choice to buy or not buy, and instead stick to my green smoothie cleanse, using spinach, kale, stevia and hemp seeds I bought at grocery stores to blend (with an electric blender) with the berries and peaches that my wife and I picked and froze earlier this year.

And how much of this is all built on the foundations of books, printed words, and more comprehensive, advanced education systems?

It, for me, is an amazing, amazing, amazing life. I’ve traveled through Asia, the Pacific, Europe and North America. I speak on phones that carry my voice, or even a video of me, to most of those places, by just pushing some buttons. I can return to my mother and sisters, thousands of miles away, by buying a ticket and boarding some aircraft that some others maintain and fly for me. We have come so far, it’s staggering to consider. Yet I still whine.

I whine because I also look up to the stars and the sun and the sky, and read about the advances being made, and the concepts being projected, and the theories being tested, and think, wow, look how far we can go.

And I’m an optimist, which is probably why I complain so much. For all the good we’ve done, we can be better. The starvation and disease and coarse conditions so many endure do not need to be endured. And, because I’m an optimist, I believe we’ll overcome them. Not for me, perhaps. I’ll die complaining about something even as we’ve advanced from where we are. Because it isn’t by standing still and saying, “Isn’t this great?” that leads us to move forward.

It’s from whining about not being better, and getting those people smarter, and more capable to do something about it, just to shut people like me up.