How Fast Are We Moving

It feels like the older I get, the slower I move but everything else around me seems to be speeding up.  We now know the Universe is expanding instead of contracting and it is speeding up rather than slowing as first believed.  It seems all our technology is geared toward speed.  When I first started thinking about this I did a little research into how fast some of this technology developed.  I thought the phone was a good place to start because here was something that has been around for a long time with out much change, then suddenly the changes were taking place daily. 

Alexander Graham Bell spoke the first words " Mr. Watson come here.  I want to see you." into a phone in 1876.  The first voice mail started in 1984.  According to my calculations, if Mr Watson hadn't been there, Alexander would have had to wait 108 years to leave a message.  Also in the first 84 years of the phone, only three upgrades were introduced.  Rotary dialing, then touch-tone and color.  The first cell phone call was made in 1973 yet cell phone service didn't begin until 1981.  That was a long to time to be on hold.  I know the feeling.

I don't why it is that we just can't get things fast enough.    I know people who stand in front of their microwave and holler "Hurry up."  We complain loudly about how slow our computer is working completely forgetting how long it took to find information or research something just a few years ago. I am also guilty of some of this behavior but I am trying my best to make changes in this area. I'm not sure what we are rushing headlong into but we are so obsessed with the end of the trip that we don't seem to care about the ride.  And I truly believe the ride is what it's all about.

A couple more good reads for you to check out.  Typhoon by Robin White is a post-Cold war story about a Russian ballistic-missile submarine and a American attack boat.  It is a page turner all the way.      



Also The Dakota Cipher by William Dietrich.  This is another fun read in the Ethan Gage series.



 Stay tuned for future adventures.