Snappy and passion-filled, these were the words of a friend speaking on the subject of
reheating food in the oven as opposed to the microwave.
The oven, I'd argued, retains the crispiness of a pizza base or the stability of a pie pastry - and we all know that a pie's pastry is make-or-break, literally. I said if we didn't have to contend with time, the oven would win.
But she was quick to remind me that we are always contending with time, and so, whenever we juxtapose the quick-start blitzer with the oven's knobs, fan-force and backlight, most of us will simply give shrug to the latter and declare, "It's not instant enough."
Little did I know then, but she had it right. In another time I was content with waiting for my dial-up internet connection to load my Neopets profile or that Homestar Runner episode, even though the latter's audio would run ahead of the video by dint of, you know, the dial-up. Things like this were far from instant, but they were more than enough.
In another time, there was this thing called 'patience'; and even when it came to technology - even when a web page would load in its stop-motion-style unveiling as each bit by literal bit of content appeared onscreen - I remained content.
Now, jump forward to last week: I did not remain content. There was an internet outage - or rather, an internet hissy fit - and it just wouldn't sit still. I tell you, the web of 2014 was as sporadic as a flickering dim light swinging on a cord in a horror film, and had this fit lasted any longer than it did, I would've had a case of hissy to call my own.
See, I'd been promised broadband with download speeds that made one's face alight. But on that day, during that bout of internet indecision, it was more akin to dial-up, albeit without the electronic scratching noises that many of us can play by ear. This wasn't right, I said. This wasn't instant enough!
Even when the connection appeared to have fixed itself, web pages would load in a jittery slowness. It was like coming early to the airport, expecting it to be empty, and finding an impossibly long queue leaking into the foyer because everyone else had had the same idea. It was the bane of the first world, and I was its unsuspecting victim.
But yet, in this moment of strife was an afterimage of reminiscence. I recalled my old dragon from Neopets - now starving to death from a lack of sausage omelette - and asked him, "At what point did this all start to change?"
Technology is meant to help, not hinder; it's the magic of the
modern world; it's there to astound and to surprise us on a planet which grows
increasingly destitute of wonder. And indeed, it does astound - once. But
following that, it becomes common place - so much so that even wonder itself may soon wither into novelty.
Somehow, over the last two decades, our expectations have become so inflated that they now coincide with basic rights. Our soons have been superimposed onto nows, and our needs and wants have become so interlaced as to remove all difference. The time bracket has become our worst enemy, and technology's best selling point. Wonders are no longer appreciated but expected.
However means through which this change has occurred, it's been slow and insidious, a usurper who for years we never knew was king. And if we are the masters of ourselves, then we have only ourselves to blame. Ironic, isn't it, that in many ways my twelve year-old self was more mature than I am now at twenty-five? A small part of me knows that this isn't how life is meant to work.
We are mammals; we adapt; and we adapt far faster than it does us good. We rip the extraordinary into its constituents, but the re-assemblage thereafter is a chore that takes too long. A web page used to take thirty seconds to load; now, if it asks for more than three, my instinct is to hit refresh repeatedly and with increasing violence, rather than give it the time of day.
You can sit on a seat thirty thousand feet in the air and travel at over 900kph, and that was wondrous, too, once. Now, along with the cramped seating and the lacklustre movies, human flight is an age-worn oven. It's not instant enough.
The oven, I'd argued, retains the crispiness of a pizza base or the stability of a pie pastry - and we all know that a pie's pastry is make-or-break, literally. I said if we didn't have to contend with time, the oven would win.
But she was quick to remind me that we are always contending with time, and so, whenever we juxtapose the quick-start blitzer with the oven's knobs, fan-force and backlight, most of us will simply give shrug to the latter and declare, "It's not instant enough."
Little did I know then, but she had it right. In another time I was content with waiting for my dial-up internet connection to load my Neopets profile or that Homestar Runner episode, even though the latter's audio would run ahead of the video by dint of, you know, the dial-up. Things like this were far from instant, but they were more than enough.
In another time, there was this thing called 'patience'; and even when it came to technology - even when a web page would load in its stop-motion-style unveiling as each bit by literal bit of content appeared onscreen - I remained content.
Now, jump forward to last week: I did not remain content. There was an internet outage - or rather, an internet hissy fit - and it just wouldn't sit still. I tell you, the web of 2014 was as sporadic as a flickering dim light swinging on a cord in a horror film, and had this fit lasted any longer than it did, I would've had a case of hissy to call my own.
See, I'd been promised broadband with download speeds that made one's face alight. But on that day, during that bout of internet indecision, it was more akin to dial-up, albeit without the electronic scratching noises that many of us can play by ear. This wasn't right, I said. This wasn't instant enough!
Even when the connection appeared to have fixed itself, web pages would load in a jittery slowness. It was like coming early to the airport, expecting it to be empty, and finding an impossibly long queue leaking into the foyer because everyone else had had the same idea. It was the bane of the first world, and I was its unsuspecting victim.
But yet, in this moment of strife was an afterimage of reminiscence. I recalled my old dragon from Neopets - now starving to death from a lack of sausage omelette - and asked him, "At what point did this all start to change?"
 |
| Coffee will never be instant enough. Not ever. |
Somehow, over the last two decades, our expectations have become so inflated that they now coincide with basic rights. Our soons have been superimposed onto nows, and our needs and wants have become so interlaced as to remove all difference. The time bracket has become our worst enemy, and technology's best selling point. Wonders are no longer appreciated but expected.
However means through which this change has occurred, it's been slow and insidious, a usurper who for years we never knew was king. And if we are the masters of ourselves, then we have only ourselves to blame. Ironic, isn't it, that in many ways my twelve year-old self was more mature than I am now at twenty-five? A small part of me knows that this isn't how life is meant to work.
We are mammals; we adapt; and we adapt far faster than it does us good. We rip the extraordinary into its constituents, but the re-assemblage thereafter is a chore that takes too long. A web page used to take thirty seconds to load; now, if it asks for more than three, my instinct is to hit refresh repeatedly and with increasing violence, rather than give it the time of day.
You can sit on a seat thirty thousand feet in the air and travel at over 900kph, and that was wondrous, too, once. Now, along with the cramped seating and the lacklustre movies, human flight is an age-worn oven. It's not instant enough.
