The world is moving too fast and we can’t keep up with it. To find your place, you need to identify what truly matters to you and focus on that thing.
It is a thing that bothered me at the beginning
I was a great football fan and I could give my colleagues the most diverse information which I had monopole on: scores, special phases, comments etc. Now there are so many specialized channels of sports transmissions which broadcast without a stop and so many sites that actualize in real time the results and video recordings. Leaving these entire aside, in those days it was really possible to know everything. There were only some radios and TV stations, two types of coffee and only one football derby.
I honestly believed that each of us (those who were at a reasonable educational level, of course) knew some common-sense things which could be considered as being a part of “common knowledge”. Unfortunately, nowadays, common knowledge is made of… news. Meaning information which are important for a few days and which are then forgotten: the silicon implant of a local star, the process of a mob guy, the problems with the medicine list or the state of spirit/health of the president.
Common knowledge from this week is replaced by that of the following week and so on… Less people know (and respect) the traditional values on which a society is said to be based on. Of course, we are proud of the fact that we know more things than our grandfathers did. Technology evolved, and because we use it, we like to consider that we have evolved too. We forget that us, the genies of the 21st century don’t do anything else than pressing some buttons. We don’t know how the processes behind the buttons work.
People from the past knew the mechanisms of their existence, although they didn’t know what we do and they didn’t have the same comfort as we do. Actually, we have more. This is, after all, the essence of contemporary world. The realities don’t overlap, they multiply. And we are feeling aggressed by the heterogeneity of the existence and we retract in a quoin. We are no longer a nation; we are a multitude of niche groups. “I only watch Discovery”, told me full of pride a person I know.
Let me give you an example, which comes from the area I know best: football. The era of coupling and of games full of goals has long gone. In the audience’s attention there are a lot of teams and a lot of players. In the Champions’ League play (and win) even those who are not champions. There are too many matches, too many televisions, too many radio stations and internet pages dedicated almost completely to football. Even the supporters who dedicate their life to the phenomenon can’t watch all of them.
A lot of people retract behind computer games (like FIFA or Football Manager) where they create their own teams, they train them, and they give them money and set them to glory. When I realized I couldn’t keep up with what was happening, I felt bad. I though I got old too young. But “the youth” don’t know more than I do about the crime presented at the evening news. I noticed that most things that make us different have to do first with musical tastes.
