Tuesday, October 17, 2006

So much life out there

We are living in a world of change. We plan our lives around change. We challenge and fight sameness. Interestingly, this is something quite new in human civilization. Surely the world always changed, but some time ago, we thought it was good if we found a "career" and just followed it. People would be working in the same company for decades and not really consider themselves sad.

We could ask ourselves many questions: what has changed? How has it changed? Is it actually a good thing for the human society in general? But I prefer the simpler question: why has it changed?

Humans are one of the most adaptive races out there. Our very big and expensive brain allows us to plan and execute very complex tasks that protect us from very adverse and sudden conditions. We are not the fastest or strongest. We don't have the longest lifespan. But we are one of the best survivors.

I think that this change is more of a realignment to our basal sense of adaptation. We were built for it, and not really to be inside a house, with a family and an 8-10 job (all normal jobs are 8-10, right?). So suddenly technology advances allowed us to recover this missing drive for adaptation. It is amazing how powerful it can be to our whole body. Think of the experience of starting a new job, or moving to a new house, to buying a new car...

On the other hand, sometimes the stress of "unplanned" (but potentially forecastable) changes is a little too unhealthy. And that's when changes erode our self, that's when it's always just better to go back to your cocoon and hide there for some time.

2 comments:

Lowell Kirsh said...

I had a job as a contractor writing software for the navy when I was 5 years old!!

Michel said...

Most probably then you have been working with Java for almost 25 years now? ;-)