There's another reason you might want to trade some of your couch time for more effortful pursuits, too: Doing so will make time appear to slow down, allowing you to relish your life more. As blog Science of Us recently reported, neuroscience shows that if you don't want your days to pass in a blur of indistinguishable memory mush, "the key is to seek out newness."
One phrase that has fallen out of common use except for law enforcement, is “all points”. That term was much more common in 1960s, but it almost never used anymore. Until the 1980s, the Massachussets Turnpike often had signs for entrance ramps that took you east bound or west bound, that would say “To All Points”.
As I listen to the old Frank Zappa record next to the swimming hole. But it’s the last summer in the 2010s and next year is certainly going to be one of change. Maybe good, but probably bad. I have no idea how 2020 will turn out but I do see a lot of change and rough sailing come the 2020s. Lots of angry people, maybe change, maybe a backlash.
I do think liberals and the news media are over confident about the coming election as incumbents often win and I’m not sure people are moving as fast to the hard left as they want to believe. Too many believed Donald Trump could never win in 2016. History proved them wrong. I just hope that Democrats can nominate someone stronger then George McGovern — it would be an embarrassment to our country to allow the incumbent to be elected by an enormous margin.
I also think a recession is overdue, as is inflation and maybe our energy supply isn’t as stable as people want to believe. Inflation has been low for a very long time, it’s bound to crank up again with all the government spending. As is gas prices and energy more generally Or maybe not, we are living in odd times. Climate change may throw a wrench into things.
But for now I’m just enjoying these concluding days of summer.
So what to make of this new “epoch” of geological time? Do we deserve it? Sure, humans move around an unbelievable amount of rock every year, profoundly reshaping the world in our own image. And, yes, we’re currently warping the chemistry of the atmosphere and oceans violently, and in ways that have analogues in only a few terrifying chapters buried deep in Earth’s history. Each year we spew more than 100 times as much CO2 into the air as volcanoes do, and we’re currently overseeing the biggest disruption to the planet’s nitrogen cycle in 2.5 billion years. But despite this incredible effort, all is vanity. Very little of our handiwork will survive the obliteration of the ages. If 100 million years can easily wear the Himalayas flat, what chance will San Francisco or New York have?
The idea of the Anthropocene is an interesting thought experiment. For those invested in the stratigraphic arcana of this infinitesimal moment in time, it serves as a useful catalog of our junk. But it can also serve to inflate humanity’s legacy on an ever-churning planet that will quickly destroy—or conceal forever—even our most awesome creations. What paltry smudge of artifacts we do leave behind, in those rare corners of the continents where sediment accumulates and is quickly buried—safe from erosion’s continuous defacing—will be extremely unlikely to be exposed at the surface, at any given time, at any given place, tens of millions or hundreds of millions of years in the geological future.
Boomers and older generations are by no means the only people having trouble in our new and chaotic information environment, although research suggests they have the most pressing challenges. Younger people also face difficulty, which is why so many news literacy programs target K-12 and college students. But the rapid pace of change on online platforms — and the lack of widespread reach of programs like Cyber Seniors — have left some older adults struggling to catch up.
The classic accent was most widespread during the city’s industrial heyday. Blue-collar work and strong regional speech are closely connected: If you were white and graduated high school in the 1960s, you didn’t need to go to college, or even leave your neighborhood, to get a good job, and once you got that job, you didn’t have to talk to anyone outside your house, your factory, or your tavern. A regular-joe accent was a sign of masculinity and local cred, bonding forces important for the teamwork of industrial labor.
