ON THE CUSP OF CHANGE

 Stop what you are doing and try running a random search on artificial intelligence or machine learning online. You’ll come across a zillion pieces of information available at the tips of your fingers. Apart from the fact that technology has made things so easy though, have you ever thought of what this truly means with regards to the general story of evolution?

Recently, we’ve been thinking how man can be compared to the most sophisticated and beautiful piece of machinery. We need some sort of fuel to keep functioning, we need maintenance, we need downtime, we absorb everything we need from all of this and excrete what we don’t. yes of course there are differences like the fact that we feel things, and think things, and respond to things on basis of these, not just mechanical programs, but we also, just like what machines are capable of doing today, are constantly upgrading and further evolving on basis of the changes in the societies around us, in manners very similar to principles like Ai and ML.

The difference, though, lies in the fact that these changes in society are taking place at a pace that is almost impossible for us to keep up with equally, leaving a lot of people from our generation, living a life on the cusp of change, with one foot in the past and one in the future.

The impact of this on their everyday lives is not hidden from anybody, but there is little that can be done. One must either move on, or be comfortable with being left behind. This reminds me of an episode I had read in a comic book based on the famous Cartoon Network show – The Flinstones, when I was a little child. If you remember this show, welcome, you are part of this cusp generation, and if you have no idea what I’m talking about, this was a show set in the stone age where the family of the Flinstones showed us their world through various episodes on TV.

In this particular episode, they were introducing the family to the concept of shoes, and it was hilarious how they found it impossible to understand why one might need them! If we imagine them in today’s world, I think the idea that you can buy everything from a toothbrush to men’s shorts online, might have driven them crazy! But that is the thing.

All change is difficult. All change is uncomfortable. And all change is necessary, if we are to move forward. The problem for our generation though, is probably the fact that this change is happening faster than it has for anyone else before, which means that our elders today, are living in a world that is completely new to them. The things that seem so normal to us in both the physical and mental realms of being, are sometimes too alien to them to accept. as responsible young adults, therefore, it is our job to find a balance for ourselves between the cluelessness of that generation, and the pure potential that the world holds for us, without alienating either from each other.

Start, perhaps, with trying one new thing that you can help someone do in order to step beyond this cusp, even if it is something as simple and strange as buying men’s shorts online and we’d be able to bridge this widening gap for all of us far more successfully than we’d otherwise have been able to.