TECHNOLOGY PART 3
I am very annoyed with the state of our technological world. By my reckoning, we are living in the Age of the Jetsons. For those of you who grew up under a rock, The Jetsons is an animated television sitcom that first aired in 1962 and continues in syndication. It was set in a futuristic utopia and followed the misadventures of a typical American family of the late 1950’s.
I see scant evidence of the robots and other labor-saving devices that were supposed to be transforming our 21st century lives.
Oh sure, we have robotic vacuum cleaners and lawn mowers. These devices have sensors to guide them as they move about a house or lawn. They do a pretty good job at their assigned tasks. But, they’re dumb. The vacuum cleaner can’t climb stairs. Nor does it have a sense of humor like Rosie, the Jetson’s robotic housekeeper, does.
There’s nothing cheap about these robotic items either, especially the mower. Cutting the grass is fine. But I can get the next-door neighbor’s kid to do it at the fraction of the cost. If I’m going to spend ten-thousand dollars on a robotic mower, it should do more. Weeding the flower beds and automatically dispensing beer on a hot day would be nice.
I’ve seen supposedly, human-like prototype robots (they’re made in Japan, where else). Quite frankly, they have a long ways to go. Their creators say the objective is not to have them look exactly like us. That’s good because they don’t.
Their robots are more functional than aesthetically pleasing. They are meant to be used to assist the elderly and handicapped. There’s one small glitch though — the robots tend to drop things or walk into walls. Probably traits not very conducive to “helping” someone, unless it’s into a hospital.
And where the heck are those aerocars? By now, we were supposed to be flying about in personal flying saucers. I feel cheated.
Don’t try to tell me that the people who figured out how to send a man to the Moon can’t figure out how to get a car to levitate. Like most really innovative, nifty ideas, it probably just suffers from lack of funding.
Plus, I think it would be difficult to enforce traffic lanes in the sky. And there’s the little issue of what happens should your source of propulsion fail. It may be a nasty fall back to Earth, which could make for a helluva liability issue.
But still, the thought of having a flying car is provocative. Think of the possibilities? Waiting in long lines for a commercial airline would be a thing of the past. Getting stuck in a traffic jam would no longer be an issue — you’d have additional dimensions available to get around it.
You’d just hop aboard your zippy personal flyer and whisk yourself away to an exotic locale. Instead of flying over the Grand Canyon at a distance that makes it look like a minor hole in the ground, you could get up close and personal. You could chase buzzards. Heck, why not have some fun doing close fly-bys over Earth-bound tourists?
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Have you noticed that some medications which used to be prescription drugs are now available over-the-counter? There are several for allergies and stomach problems.
I wonder why they no longer require a doctor’s supervision to dispense. Could it be that as a race we’re smarter now about diagnosing our own health issues? Maybe at one time these issues seemed critical, but we’ve since learned to deal effectively with them without a doctor’s intervention.
I suppose that’s the same reasoning behind having nurse practitioners who essentially do the same work doctors did years ago. Less serious, almost routine, health issues can be taken care of with fewer resources than required before.
That’s really no different than how we individually deal with our own personal issues. When we were younger, we’d expend much more time and energy on problems that we now handle easily. For example, without a driver’s license it was a complicated undertaking to get to the mall. It may have involved cross-town buses requiring transfers. But then “driver’s ed” came along and, if there was a car available, we simply started driving directly there.
Transportation is pretty much a physical event, but the same holds true with intangible issues, too. Like we may have had our hearts broken as adolescents by our first love. It was traumatic. It may have involved days or weeks of moping around with our heads hanging low, thinking the sun would never shine again. But it did.
We learned that after a while, the pain lessened. We started smiling and even dated again. Then the next time it happened, being a bit wiser, we handled it with less pain. It still hurt, but we knew it was only a temporary condition we were passing through. With a little experience, what once was a major issue became manageable.
It’s the scope of that concept I wish to explore further. At one time we had such limited vision that every dilemma threatened our peace of mind. We thought if we don’t go to that party, then we’d just die. Now, we understand that feeling. It’s called “disappointment.” It doesn’t feel good, but it poses no imminent threat to our survival. It hurts right now, but we know there will come a tomorrow — a new day in which we can seize opportunities we were unaware of yesterday.
From working through disappointment, we actually develop hope. From parlaying setbacks into successes, we gain access to optimism. From living through tragedy to find hope. We learn that patience fosters a new beginning.
It hurts now, but now always transforms into a “new now.” How we define that “new now” totally depends on the lessons we’ve learned along the way. Are we stuck in the misery of our disappointment? Or are we experienced enough to leave it behind as we continue to move forward?
The choice is ours. And make no mistake, it is simply that — a choice. Which choice will you make?
So, if your nose is stuffy or your stomach hurts, you have some simple remedies available now to relieve them. If you’re heart is heavy, then you also have a simple choice to shed whatever’s weighing it down.
If you're enjoying this over coffee, tea, or whatever, please consider buying me a cup!
