Passage Of Time
What a beautiful day we had here in London yesterday. It was sunny all day with skies as blue as I've ever seen them. The air was crisp and clear, devoid of the usual pollution we get in my neighbourhood. The storm of days past must have blown that stuff away, for now. I took a little walk to a local park, which was unsurprisingly packed, to bask in the winter sunshine. The the unexposed parts of the grass was still covered in frost because it was actually freezing cold through the night.
The cafe in the park was closed, being Sunday, but there was a mobile coffee van which was very handy. It's only a small van, and it was very busy in the park due to the rare good weather, so the queue was very long. Ah, we love to queue here in the UK, so I put in my 25 minute wait for a small cup of black coffee :)
The rest of the time in the park was spent sitting on a bench staring into the view above. I must have counted a hundred airplanes flying back and forth, creating white lines across the blue sky. It's beautiful in a way, but it also ruins the otherwise perfect blue canvas. It got me thinking how connected the world is right now with air travel. Some of the trips that are made intraday these days would have taken months, if not years back in those days. Now we have people flying from Glasgow to Tokyo, London to Sydney within the same day. Crazy stuff.
During the days of Concord, a now defunct airline which was a collaboration between the United Kingdom and France, business men and women would fly from London or Paris to New York for a business meeting and return on the same day! It's amazing to think that we haven't recreated Concord in this day and age. Perhaps it's not an engineering issue but, rather, a demand issue. Telecommunication is so good nowadays that the aforementioned business people no longer have to travel to be at those meetings. They can simply "Zoom" there. So, forget getting from London to New York in three hours, try 3 seconds. Sorcery!
I'm one of these people that constantly thinks about the passage of time from the point of view of science and technology. Whenever something new is invented in my lifetime, like the iPhone for instance, I always wonder what my grandpa who passed away in 1981 would have thought about it. He was a hundred years old and his world was totally different. In his youth there were no cars at all in his village, just bicycles and horses. He used to ride a horse to different towns to handle his business. I have a vague recollection of him being a very strict man. He would have hated smartphones I think, especially the way people get totally hypnotised by them. He was a man of principles and discipline. He commanded so much authority and respect. I remember when he walked into the room we'd all sit up straight and adjust any slouching quickly. No idea why we did that, I think I just copied everyone else haha.
Someone once asked me which I'd chose; to travel 1 thousand years into the future or 1 thousands years into the past to a location of my choice. Ideally I'd pick the future. We already kind of know the past, I can read about that in books, even if most of the stuff in books may not be totally accurate. The future is a complete mystery. I'd love to see if we ever solve the energy crisis which we seem to be on the cusp of doing. A team in America presented a prototype of a "500 year" battery using a radioactive isotope of carbon embedded in diamond. I would very much love to see where that goes. If they're able to harness that tech, we could see a future where we no longer need a power grid anymore. Instead, each building could come pre-installed with a battery that lasts forever, providing all the energy needs of the home. Every vehicle would have the same. Imagine that. I'm not optimistic about this though. Anything that frees the people from having to pay for energy gets shut down, or at least sabotaged, pretty quickly.
I'd also like to see how far we take the personal drone thing. Perhaps shoes that can create lift so people can fly/ hover around instead of walking. The ever sedentary population would love that. It would be ok though since we'd have given up food completely in favour of a single pill in the morning that delivers the exact amount of calories, nutrients and meds needed per day. Dystopian stuff.
Having said the above, the future is uncertain and may not exist. 1000 years from now, we could be extinct. Any one of the threatening extinction events could easily take us out; nuclear war, meteorite, pandemic, chemical war, biological war, humans vs machines, the second coming of Jesus, e.t.c.. As such, I'd actually pick to visit the past. I have so many questions and destinations to go. I would love to have a chat with one of the greatest multi-geniuses the world has ever seen; Imhotep The Great. I suspect I may be disappointed though. You know what they say, "never meet your heroes".
Other legends I'd love to meet and experience include my grandfathers's great-grandfather who apparently was a military general who fought against invading Arabs in the Sahel and, later, the Portuguese. He reportedly loved horses, not just for military purposes, unlike the other warriors, and had a special connection with his. When his horse was injured in battle, and could no longer go to war, he apparently fought foot going forward. What a story. I wonder how much of it is actually true though. We humans have a way of romanticising the past, especially about patriarchs.
Many of these so-called great men of the past were merely team leaders or managers that took the credit for something someone subordinate to them did. This was quite common in the world of scientific inventions of the past as well as music and literature. For instance, many owners of enslaved peoples simply took credit for what one of their slaves invented. Many enslaved people were artisans and professionals before they were enslaved. They didn't just stop creating stuff when they had the chance. "Bolean" Mathematics and "Inoculation" are two great examples of this phenomenon.
By the way, not all the people I'd like to meet were deemed "good" people. The list is long, including Genghis Khan, Chaka Zulu, Ibn Batutta, Mansa Musa, Marie Curie, Judas Iscariot, Bob Marley, Bruce Lee, Christopher Columbus, a T-Rex......
Peace & Love,
Adé
Ade, I can see you literally on this bench in the park, sipping your coffee on this wonderful Sunday in London you described. And all this thoughts come to your Head. And your mind is drifting along from one thought to the Next… 💯
I probably couldnt decide whether to go into the future or the past but as yourself I know quite some people I would love to meet. Bruce Lee (check 🤝🏻) is one but also JFK, Marcus Aurelius and as a Bitcoiner I would love to go back to 2008, when someone called Satoshi published that whitepaper. And last but not least, having watched Jurassic Parc I would like to see that world.
Have a good start into the week! The weather seems to have come down here to Germany. ☀️Love it!
Ah JFK would be interesting. I hope you buy bitcoin in 2008 haha.
PS: Quite an interesting Family story you have. 👍🏻
Hahah, yeah it's pretty wild. It's probably at least 50% fantasy though. 😂
😅🤷🏼♂️