“Have you ever come across an old school exercise book, or something else you once wrote and, on leafing through it been amazed at how much you have changed in such a short time? Amazed by your mistakes, but also by the good things you had written? Yet at the time you hadn’t noticed that you were changing. Well, the history of the world is just the same. How nice it would be if suddenly, heralds were to ride through the streets crying: ‘Attention please! A new age is beginning!’ But things aren’t like that: people change their opinions without even noticing. And then all of the sudden they become aware of it, as you do when you look at your old school books. Then they announce with pride: ‘We are the new age.’ And they often add: ‘People used to be so stupid.’” – A Little History of the World by E.H. Gombrich
I feel like I see history in the making each and every day. We really are in a new age. I’m not sure what our posterity will call this… perhaps the “Digital Revolution,” in the same sense that the Industrial Revolution once changed history? There are so many changes taking place in the world right now. Perhaps this is the “Golden Age of America” coming to a close, just as the great empires of Rome and Greece and Egypt, nobody knew exactly when they would fall but the unraveling began much earlier than anyone foresaw at the time… Perhaps this will someday be called “The Great Recession” because of the far reaching global effects of the “Mortgage Meltdown” followed by the “Bailout.” It depends on how you break it down, this decade? Or this Century? And what aspects will they look at? The economics? Technology advancements? Social changes? Or the Wars and international relations? It all depends on what comes next. Frightfully so, if an international war broke out in the next few years then they would certainly analyze this time to find out the causes and build up. It is strange how one thing leads to another. Or in medicine, if they suddenly found a cure to cancer, perhaps this time would be talked about as ‘The Cancer Age.” Change is always creeping about. I know that I am young, but already this is not the same world that I entered 25 years ago, and I look forward with both concern and excitement. I can feel the changes, and it seems they are coming faster and faster with time, so many at once, all affecting one another. But as we take a look at history through the ages, things really do have a way of repeating themselves in different forms. People could learn a lot from each other if they looked at those who have gone before…. But all too often we insist on learning the hard way. These are interesting times and history in the making.
