Ah, the changes, the changes...best to just get used to treading water, staying with the current, as the river bank we've left blurs in the distance behind us and the other side remains a vague blur on the horizon...this river of change, societal in nature, delivered by the Internet, is a wide one. It's flow rate isn't dictated by its swimmers.
At the moment, the transition world is still with us, allowing both BG (before google) and AG (after google) people to appear to coexist. It's the last part of the transition world, though. As the BG people disappear, leaving only the AG beings, people will wonder what all the fuss was about! The digital world will be "the" world, and just like wallpaper...it's there, but not noticed. It just "is".
Marshall McLuhan, that perceptive soul, giving us those bulletins from the front of change, all the way back in the 1970s, was right: our technology changes us, as a people. Our culture, our social connections change...we do become our technology.
If we try to hang onto the old paradigm, the script that seemed to work right up to 1998, we will be in anxiety and pain. If we are on the digital side of the divide, we will see enthusiasm and opportunity. At each epoch making moment of change, in human history, it was ever thus.
Wasn't this the theme of George Eliot's and Charles Dickens' writings? The divide between the Agrarian World and the new Industrial Age? Very human, too, to ignore history's lessons! Change is a constant, but not necessarily comfortable.
So...back to treading water...it's warm water, buoyant and supportive...no need to drown. Does require us, though, to go with the flow of change that is "our" age/our time.
What did Arjuna say on that long ago field of battle? Not farewell, but fare forward, Voyagers....
Ah, yes...the quest is ever before us. So, flowing on, facing forward, that opposite bank is just beginning to come into focus.
The good news? The 21st Century's co-operative mindset will welcome us ashore. Meantime, bring on the webinars, the web based tutorial blogs, whispers from those just slightly ahead of us in this warm and inviting river of change! Share the process....
And your thoughts are? Always welcome!
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