Ever Changing World

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As a senior citizen and retired person, I have the leisure to look back at life and wonder how the world changed over the last half-century or so. Perhaps the greatest change has been in communication technologies. As a child we had holders with nibs or pens to write. One dipped the nib in an inkpot and then wrote on paper with the wet nib. There were different colored inks, blue, royal blue, green, red and once in a rare while a brown one too. I loved trying out the different colors. At times one smudged the paper with a blob of ink and there were blotting papers to soak it up.

After one wrote a letter, one made a trip to the post office to get the envelope weighed, get stamps and then post the letter. It took a few weeks to reach distant lands. The reply came back after several weeks. One could make a phone call too if the recipient had a phone but one booked the call through an operator and then waited a while before she called back if the call was through to a different country. Oh dear! It was all so much fun. Nothing like shooting off an email right away and getting the reply before one can count to ten.

Technology has made life easier in many ways over the last half century but life for most has not become easier. In fact it has become far more complicated and difficult in many other ways. At the root of complexities has been the ever-increasing greed of humans and arising from it use of tricks and unethical practices that breed complexity. There is no such thing as going and paying your phone bill at the end of the month anymore. There are plans, and you have to choose one, all designed it seems to confound the hapless customer so as to suck his last penny, and one does not go and just buy a thing, there is an EMI so the greedy lot can suck the most out of you through additional interest payments or come and threaten you in case you miss a payment.

Aside from the greed side of it all, another factor that has made life difficult for humans is the increasing population on the planet and crowding of cities and roads because of it. Kids no longer have open grounds with easy access to play in or ride on their little bicycles safely on roads in very many places around the world. The air is no longer as pure to breathe and sunshine lacking. There is much noise pollution too.

All the changes that have taken place over my lifetime are not cyclic in nature. Some are unprecedented. Human population on the planet was never so huge and population of trees, wild life and insects never so little except perhaps in the ice ages. Such changes are a source for concern but I have faith in the Lord that created this Universe and do feel that he has ways to correct it all, even if it takes an apocalypse for Him to do it.

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