The Old New World

Lately I've been thinking about the differences in people growing up today versus the lives of past generations. When I recall my own childhood, I think about how different the world seemed back then. By the time I was seven, my father had taught me how to use a telescope, ride a bicycle, build ramps, play baseball, rollerblade, play hockey, and how to play the guitar, as well as how to build instruments. My father would also read me history—though, at the time, I wasn't as enthusiastic about that as I was about riding bicycles or playing sports.

I remember zooming around the neighborhood with friends as the sun fell beneath the horizon and orange streetlights lit up—just as my mother would holler that dinner was ready. My mother would work during the day, and my father at night. And they both provided me with knowledge and resources for survival, instilling in me many good traits—and a moral compass.

However, when I was younger and more naive, I thought my parents—especially my father—were tough on me. But now that I am older, I see only how lucky and fortunate I was.

But also I wonder if future generations will be less adventurous, and less active, due to new "norms," like video games and digital content creation/consumption. Will future kids know what it's like to run around their neighborhoods in a high-trust society underneath orange streetlights? Will they, as I did, learn to play sports, or have regimens of physical activity, or be taught how things work by a generation of skillful people that came before them? Will future families venerate strength and beauty? Has that world been destroyed? If so, will it exist again some day? If that old world has only faded, can it ever be rekindled?