Sundial

Succinct, Hilaire Belloc could do succinct.

'I am a sundial and I make a botch
Of what is done far better by a watch.'

And quite right too. Sometimes we fondly remember things that were just a rung on the ladder to something better. Sometimes the old ways are better.

Anyone of my generation probably remembers having to learn how to use a slide rule and log tables. I can see that we had to learn those things to give us all the same opportunities, clearly if you were going to become an engineer or any kind of sciency person you couldn't be sitting around waiting for the mass production of the pocket calculator. Looking back though, a thorough waste of my time.

At Brownies, we learned semaphore. Now this I can see could still have a use. Say you are inexplicably stranded on a mountain where your phone won't work. So long as someone in line of sight of you who also went to Brownies in the sixties is looking up at the right moment, you're saved! Well, unless you're me and can't actually remember any of the signals.

We needed to put up with televisions with rolling pictures, telephone lines that went out, using bars of soap in the shower and the intricate ritual of bed making in the days of sheets and blankets in order to arrive at our modern versions of these.
Nor do I wish to return to the days of having a separate set of cutlery for eating fish or being expected to drink white wine with fish and chicken, having to dress up to go on an aeroplane or wearing a constricting garment to hold my stomach in.

On the other hand, I'm sure the automatic transmission evolved after the ordinary gearstick and I don't want to embrace that, I don't want to lose the control the gears give me - or for that matter use the extra petrol needed for an automatic.

In the mid-section between sundial and watch, I like hearing regional accents on the BBC but I still want my news read in received pronunciation.
I'd like policemen and women to always be friendly - to me at least, but I want them to be a lot tougher on the bad guys and I'm happy for them to wear more sensible headgear and bullet proof protection over their uniforms.
I want postmen and women to always use bikes but I'm pleased I can use on-line banking, that I can contact friends and family in a second without having to go to the post office and buy stamps or an airletter form.

I no longer have a watch, haven't done for some time. I rely on my phone to tell me the time, since I have to carry it anyway. The only place this doesn't work is on a plane. Even in the cinema, if you're having to check the time, then that movie isn't doing it for you and you'd be better off walking out.

I'm not disagreeing with Belloc of course, simply musing that we, even with all the spoils of progress, are still on our way. We're nowhere near the top of the ladder, if in fact the ladder actually has a top. Planes are getting bigger and faster and yet still using less fuel. SKy plus, mythbox, teevo or whatever it is called are all changing the way we watch TV. The Euro has changed Europe and maybe we will one day have a world currency - which Britain naturally will be the last to adopt. Perhaps English, now only spoken at all by 25% of the planet will be available to all.
I hope that gender, sexual preference, colour, looks, physical and some mental disabilities and religion will become irrelevancies to achievement.

We were sundials once. People used to be shorter, less healthy, as a general population less intelligent - bear in mind that learning increases intelligence. What will we become? We're already watches. A prevalent sci-fi idea is that of treatments that keep the human body healthy whilst extending longevity. If that were to happen then our minds would have to be extended too. We would need longer memories, maybe greater processing power. As computer technology progresses, so does the potential for enhancing humans.
Would we become better people? How could our personalities be improved? If you think of your worst trait, would someone else see it that way? Would we even want to let go of our demons if we could ?

People, never content, give 'em a sundial and they'll come up with a watch, give 'em a watch and who knows where it'll lead. Lets just hope it leads to something better.