Even as a member of gen Y i am not sure how i feel about this technological revolution we are in. Things are moving a such a pace that at the age of 19 i am already finding myself missing the 'old days.' I miss cassette tapes and the times of the walkman. Going to the library to find information for assignments rather than just googling it.
I find it hard to comprehend what changes my grandparents have been through. I know we all laugh about how many of them can't use computers and work phones or stereos without buttons or dials. My grandfather once asked me what the difference was between a laptop and facebook. But knowing where they have come from, i understand how they feel somewhat alienated by computers and the internet these days. My grandmother was helping my cousin with an assignment recently, by answering questions about her trip out to australia. She spoke about her childhood and they world she cast with her words was far from what i know it to be today.
She lived in a small house in belgium in the countryside. At a young age her father died of phenomena and her baby sister died around the same time when she was about six. It was around the time of the war and medicinal supplies were very depleted, not to mention the lack of the medicinal advancements we take for credit today. During the war they had Germans in the town and my grandmother spoke about how a few people in the town went missing over time. They had a little safe house her mother made in the backyard that they once had to use. She remembers he sound of bombs being dropped in the distance. Maybe her prayers were heard because only three houses in her village were destroyed and the occupants weren't home at the time. Her family were poor, as her mother was widowed, and were lucky to have help from friends and neighbours. But my grandmother wasn't able to go to high school, because her family couldn't afford it. This is one of the things that saddens me the most for she speaks about how she was one of the top pupils in her class. So that was the end of her school education and she went to work. I have mentioned here many of the sad things about her life, but she also spoke fondly of other memories. The first television in her village was where she worked, and she learned a little french because that was what was broadcasted. She told us of how she hated goat cheese and milk because her family owned a goat and her mother would make most foods from the milk it produced.
So for people who we may consider sometimes as old fashioned, boring, and clueless, our grandparents are some of the wisest we know. Just because they won't use a computer doesn't mean they couldn't if they tried. Hell, we children of the nineties maybe able to use one, but how many of us would be capable of understanding how it works?
Its not just technology that has changed since the early twentieth century, but society. What would your grandparents say if they knew you were having sex, not only before you were married, but before you were legally counted an adult? They wouldn't be able to know because they don't have facebook right? Less than a hundred years down the track and you are now considered a minority if your over twenty and are still a virgin in some countries. What more when even the media depicts it as normal, when for the last two thousand years sex before marriage was considered a sin, an abomination, unacceptable in the same countries. Religion has been constantly tested over time, but it has lasted until now. It's probably wise to say that science was the straw that broke the camels back. Now that we have a theory of evolution, we doubt the words of the bible, and the ancient stories passed down over the years. We are given the freedom to choose what to believe and now the world is full of agnostics that choose to believe what allows them to live their life in happiness.
So is the loss of such dominating religions in society bad? or is it ok as long as we keep that morals and values that will lead to a positive future. How do we keep these values without the aid of religion we've had all this time?
These are questions that i think about regularly because in this revolution we can't see where things are going, whether its for better or for worse. I am only writing from my perspective, and those of others may be completely different to my own. Those others may be over the other side of the world or just my neighbours. I love science, i believe in evolution, i love the beauty of religion, but i feel disappointed that there have been so many wars over it because people have forgotten the main reason behind religion, which is love. i don't know if there is a higher power, for science answers no, but yet it can't answer every question. my school Chaplin had a degree in biology, and he raised a point that i have often thought about many times, why can't both exist?
I don't know how this blog ended up on the topic of religion, for after all it was my least favourite subject at school, including maths.
All i can really do in life is my best, appreciate things that i may not love, such as school, for i know that i am able to go places my grandmother couldn't, and live in a diverse world of mixed cultures and advancement of technology. Hopefully one day i can say i have made the correct choices.
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