Voices

I hear the ghosts of passed generations screaming out through the current silence. Somehow their haunting pitch falling on mostly deaf ears, but not mine and not here.

We live in an age incredible. At out fingertips, whether through the endless volumes filling countless buildings throughout the world or merely the books in our homes we have the key to our own survival. For those of us that refuse to read we have a seemingly endless supply of television channels, some responsible for the stunting of humanities progress but other truly attempting to impart the wisdom of our age. As if this were not enough,, should we be fortunate enough (as even still computers are prohibitively expensive) our homes have a direct link to a system of networks that can at lightning speed give us almost any information. Not only that which we require but also that which we desire.

We live in an age of information, inundated by it at every turn. What we have relegated to common place is in fact one of the greatest achievements our species, but, our obtuse and oblivious innate nature almost willingly turns a blind eye.

The voices grow louder until I can no longer stand their screams. They fear that we are loosing trees for the forest and as such are missing the full splendour of individuality. All those that died at the beginning of time scream loudest as we learn more in one day than they in a lifetime.

They scream, asking why we ignore the answers to our own salvation believing that in our quest it is enough to focus our intellectual attention (if we focus at all) on just one thing: Specialists all (or most) without a specialty in the thing that really matters – A solution to the very real problems that face us, have faced us and will continue to face us until we collectively realize we’ve had the answers all along.

The information age, the age in which the whole (With minor yet important exceptions) of human knowledge has been given to its rightful owners, each of the approximate six billion people on this planet – Save that not every one of those constituents is yet to realize the very real empowerment that faces them.

The voices scream of the inherent danger in that constituencies apparent apathy. Slowly, the toold of empowerment that so rightly have been returned to the people who should be both the beneficiaries and benefactors are going to have the caliber of information, our information, attacked first and eventually ripped from our wanting fingers.

The voices can’t say for sure when or where but should we continue on this course the age of information will become the age that lets its true source of power pass it by. For you, reading this, no matter the time or place you can pull yourself up and out of any station of life that you are in by merely capturing, reading, speaking about, debating and truly understanding as much as you can bear.

Salvation, yours and ultimately that of the planet is at hand, right at your fingertips, the only question is; Will you grasp it?

SDM