Generational

What is it about the past that people find more interesting than the present? Growing up, I always hated history...or parts of it. I didn't mind getting into the 40's and on, but once we reached the 90's I was over it.

After all does anyone ever really care for the present? Some of my best writing isn't from present moments but recalling the past and I wonder...is the rest of the world doomed?

Take for example the way customer service is. The way people act, especially younger generations. Since everything is automatically at your finger tips, do we take these objects for granite?

The other day I found a box of mixed tapes that I hadn't listened to in years. I remembered that most of them had three or four versions of the same song taped off from the radio. None of them had the complete start, but it was my attempt at hearing the important parts.

If you asked me to record a song off the radio today, it would probably take me a few tries to rig the cassette player and tape up.

Simple things like that, make me hate the present and wish for a better past. Things I never liked before I do now.

My grandpa, R.I.P, would always smoke a cigarette, drink coffee and listen to his radio in my grandparents kitchen when I was growing up. Anytime we'd visit him, he'd prop a jar of windmill cookies on the middle of the table for me, and give my parents two cups of black coffee. They'd all sit and talk, my dad bothered by the smoke, and I used to find it incredibly boring.

Today, the idea of incredible conversation and down time from this mad capped world is something I feel is missing. No one sits around and talks anymore. Hardly anyone knits, draws, reads, paints or expresses themselves, unless you're a serious artist.

I guess the point of my ramblings today is that the world progresses with the future, but how much of it has taken away our values? I often wonder what the world would have been like if Y2k, had hit? Would people have been ready to face one another so jarringly?