It has just occurred to me that what we Israelis are used to call : “Windows” was not so long ago called: חלונות (“Halonot” in Hebrew), both officially and colloquially, which is something I bet very few people remember. This can teach us an interesting lesson about how gradual changes can go unnoticed by us. Only when we stop and look around we suddenly start to see how big these changes were. For example, think of how drastically our lives were changed by the Internet and the cell-phones. But these did not come with a big “Bang!” – such that (I’d imagine) accompanied inventions like the penicillin or the first aircraft. These technologies evolved gradually around us, maturing and advancing in both the technical field (speed, quality, quantity) and the sociological-cultural field (which is essentially the role the play in our society and the meaning we give them). It should be interesting to explore this notion further and find out why some inventions are instantly considered world-shattering (having immediate and drastic consequences on our lives), and others – innovative or important as they are – take time to spread and fulfill their potential.
And on a slightly different note… Another interesting notion I have been occupied with : how uniform and universal is the “common” logic that rules our life (or what some would call our “human-experience”). For example, consider the age-old aphorisms which eventually most of us live by. Most of them are even considered part of “Murphy’s Grand Scheme” (that’s the same Murphy with “The Law”) . If ALL of them were to be reversed, see how suddenly everything “bad” in life suddenly becomes good:
- The more tasty a certain food is, the healthier it is for you.
- The more you enjoy, time seems to pass slower, and vice versa.
- Just when you look for something – you find it. Especially if it is right under your nose.
- As demand goes up, the price goes down.
And so on…
Somehow, all the logic in our lives is organized in such a way that reversing it seems to change everything for the better, without causing any “ill-effects”. Of course, this is all completely theoretic, since as we all know, Murphy still is – and for the foreseeable future would remain – the undisputed ruler of the cosmos.
Life(); 