The World is Changing

I remember when a fancy coffee was warming up some milk in a pan and having an extra sugar in my Nescafe (other instant coffees are readily available!). Today we have a bewildering selection to choose from, some of which aren’t even made from coffee beans. “Aww, that’s a nice story Grandpa” I hear some of you say while sipping your low-fat latte with cinnamon and an extra shot and looking at me with that long suffering gaze that says, “here comes another nostalgia rant” and “it was better in my day”.

And I guess that’s what this is to a degree, but also, it’s a little think piece for my own rumination about the way our brains interpret the world and what does routine and simplicity mean to us.

I'm a child of eighties, Thatcher Britain, when punk was dying down, the new romantics were starting up, VHS and Betamax were at war, miners were on strike and remote controls for your TV had a cable! (yes, I’m that old).

So, my young brain was formed by this world, and the technology that was developing at the time. My little corner of the world (West Yorkshire) was quite remote from the glamour and excitement of far-flung places, Hollywood extravagance and expensive new technology. As time passed and we drifted into the Nineties new things like CD’s appeared, home computing became a thing, overseas holidays were getting cheaper and mobile phones appeared.
By this time, I was becoming a fully formed (but not very sensible adult) and my thought processes and expectations for what life would be like were becoming quite settled. Change is not an easy thing to handle when you’re an adult, as you get older adaptation takes more and more effort as you have to try harder to understand things, as your senses degrade ever so slightly day by day and you become a fuddy duddy (look it up!).

So, the point of this is that, yes it was better in my day, but not because it was better than today but simply because I was better at adapting to new things when I was younger. That golden age in time when the world was simpler never actually existed. Or maybe it did, but only for me and only because I lived it so it's something I experienced and therefore only real for me.

And because this mythical period only exists in my memory then you can bet that my parents are thinking back to their early years and thinking the exactly the same thing.

So, what am I trying to say? Maybe it’s that to keep your balance in this crazy world of evolving language, developing technology, social relationships, fluid sexuality and massive coffee menus you need to keep reminding yourself that you’re not as young as you used to be, and it’ll be a bit harder for you to understand. Make some space in your brain and slow down. Stop harking back to a time long gone, because unless Doctor Who is real, we can’t do time travel. The time you have is the one you’re in, and time is a river, so go with the current.