It’s a
new year and I find myself feeling very reflective. I’ve been here for almost 38 years, and in my
life the world has changed so vastly.
When future robot Historians write about this time they will refer to it
as the Technological Age. They will smugly detail their rise up above the carbon based
bipeds who were too busy watching stupid videos on Youtube to notice that they
were slowly being sucked into a Martix of sorts. Ehh…whatcha gonna do about it?
The
most notable differences, for me, is that the world has somehow become both
bigger and smaller at the same time. All of this constant media connects us all, and yet somehow separates us. It’s not unusual to go out and see groups of
people sitting together, looking beautiful in the glow of their electronic
devices but not speaking a word to each other. The world flashes, and pulses with sound and pictures but day by day we are losing our humanity.
Children grow up so fast these, but so many of them don’t go outside and play with each other anymore. They chat online, and play video games but they don’t know how to play freeze tag. They watch things on the television that
would have shocked me in my youth (hell, some of it shocks me now) without
batting an eye but are terrified of going out in the world alone, because we
have to teach them that the world is a dangerous place. Because it is.
They've watched planes crash into
buildings full of innocent people, they've seen bombs rain down on other
innocent people and in the back of their minds they wonder if today is the day
that one of their classmates will walk into school with a gun and start
shooting. The things they see on the
news can never be unseen. In my darkest
moments, I can find a little perverse peace in all the horrible things that my
boy will never have a visual image of burned onto his retinas.
The
world is also very stimulating now. Just a hundred and
fifty years ago people rode horses, sent telegrams to each other and marveled
at the awesomeness novelty of electricity.
Sometimes I think it would have been easier for Gabriel to have been
born in those days. People talked to each other as their primary form of
entertainment. The read out loud, they
made things with their own two hands and went to potluck dinner dances That scenario is moot, however
for it is very unlikely that Gabriel or I would have survived his traumatic
birth 150 years ago and had the chance to spin yarns by the fireplace.
Here in the 21st century, there are so many parts of the world you need eyes to experience. Movies and television shows have become a staple in most peoples lives. They talk about them around the water cooler at jobs they've driven their cars to, while showing each other video clips and gifs.
My
primary concern for my son’s future is twofold:
Will he be able to reach a level of independence that most of us take
for granted? And will he be forever left
out because of all the things he can’t see?
I could
drive myself crazy thinking about him, as a young adult in his first apartment,
stumbling and spilling some juice on the floor.
Will he be able to clean it all up?
Will he miss some and be invaded by ants? Will he realistically be capable of living
alone and drinking juice?
He doesn’t get invited to many
birthday parties or play dates even though he has a lot of friends at
school. I know why - parents don’t want
the responsibility of having a kid who can’t see cruising around their houses. Perhaps if I was in their shoes, I would feel
the same. Will this be a pattern in his
life? Will his friends exclude him for
fun times when he’s older because he’ll always need a little extra help?
I have
no answers to these questions, therefore I don’t often allow them to haunt
me. I focus on the here and now, and hold
on to a hope. That one day technology
will bring him a benign seeing-eye robot who will help clean up the juice he spills on
the floor and make it easy for him to go out and hang with his friends. I pray that the same technology that is rapidly
changing the very fabric of society will enrich his life by letting him live it
the way he wants to, not just the way he can.
