What has happened to us is an amazing invention, computers and the internet and TV, a revolution. This is not the first revolution we, the human race, has dealt with. The printing revolution, which did not take place in a matter of a few decades, but took much longer, changed our minds and ways of thinking. A foolhardy lot, we accepted it all, as we always do, never asked “What is going to happen to us now, with this invention of print?” And just as we never once stopped to ask, How are we, our minds, going to change with the new internet, which has seduced a whole generation into its inanities so that even quite reasonable people will confess that once they are hooked, it is hard to cut free, and they may find a whole day has passed in blogging and blugging etc.
Doris Lessing
Dear Mrs. Lessing, I’m one of those blogging-blugging-etc. guys. I’m not your generation, not at your level of writing and understanding literature at all. And I’m quite happy to live now, here and the way my generation does. I don’t expect to win a nobel or any other prize for my handiwork.
I never read any of your books, maybe I’ll do some day. But I don’t read many books. I read the whole day, a lot at this blogging-blugging-blah world. And I think there never was a time when people read more, were deeper into discussions and arguments. This is not the age of »inanities«, as you call it. Inanities are nothing but existing. Neither new nor evil.
The main difference is: we are able to waste our time. Partly, because we don’t want to repeat the mistakes of former generations (wars, conquering the world, abusing the planet etc.). Thanks to your generation: we learnt a lot.
Thank you for all the confidence in your predecessors as human beings. Maybe we’ll able to fix at least some of the problems you mention in your speech in a more appropiate way than your generation did. It left a scrutinized world - and I feel it does not have any right to complain about the reality it’s bequeathing. Sorry to say it that way: Your generation screwed it up and had a good life doing so. And now it expects us to do better. That’s naive, but we’re too. That’s why we’ll try. We are going to change the world in our own way. I hope you’ll still be able to see it.
And since this is a blog, everyones welcome to correct me, to discuss this entry, to tell me whether I’m wrong or right. Even though it might be just some »inanity«.