In the early days humanity faced the challenge to survive in the wilderness. So people learnt how to build houses, cook meals and fight with cold. This knowledge was accumulated and passed down for generations.
At this stage of development we already live in cities created for us by somebody else, these cities being the sites for humankind existence. We face quite a different task, that of surviving in the city. The laws of social environment are not entirely those of the physical world. They are abstract notions somewhat like fashion, etiquette, state, local rules and other formalities and conventions.
Humankind has altogether coped with survival: we are more than 7 billion. The only necessary physical efforts needed in cities are the ability to reach the subway, a bus, a car, and to go over to a store to get food. Other difficulties pertain to another perspective.
To the perspective of communications with people, the state, the new technologies… One of the connected new tasks is to cope with an enormous number of previously accumulated information (knowledge) and with a delirious flow of new information.
We arrive in a world that is already replete, intensive and rapidly changing. Each new generation must be able to assimilate the history of previous generations and to find its place in the modern digital and man-triggered context. Time for ‘integration’ for each subsequent generation will reduce impetuously. It is possible that evolution of humans as a species will help out. And people of the future will just learn and percept more quickly.
I don’t know what we all have to do with it. But I am definitely sure of several things. Firstly, everyone who wants to live in the modern world, must learn continuously and be courageous. Secondly, one must understand that if one could ‘become out-of-date’ for one’s children before, today one manages to become completely out-of-date 2-3 times prior to their birth and their becoming part of one’s family.
And, finally, your speed of moving across life, reacting and taking decisions matters. For this reason it is crucial to know how to ‘stop yourself’, but this is a topic for a distinct conversation.
These are only reflections of one of us, a human trying not to betray universal human values, to be a family man and a professional in my domain at the same time.
I don’t know what way is right. Nobody does. But it is important to perceive common patterns and to be ready to live a life in all of its aspects. Probably I haven’t said anything new. I have just expressed my thoughts aloud.
PS: I gave some money from my scanty stock to the musician having played on a violin the text that you have just read. It’s all fair.
