It is a challenge to find a news commentator, comedian, or person in line next to us waiting to get a cup of coffee who doesn’t have something to say about how much the world has changed in these past many months. We have discovered e-learning, mask wearing and vaccine cards. We have mastered how to order online, stand 6 feet apart and mercilessly judge anyone who doesn’t agree with us. Still, is revolution something new? Had we been steady until 2020 and then suddenly slipped into a new world order? Or, has disruption been with us, a part of the human condition, all along?
For decades, Americans would stay in their cars to fill with fuel and park them to go inside when it was time to eat. Gas station attendants would check the oil, wash the windows and top off the tank — all as we’d sit idly reading a print newspaper that we’d picked up from the driveway before beginning the daily commute. If we needed coffee, we pulled into the diner, parked, went inside, ordered, waited for someone to make it and deliver the beverage, and then we drank it from stoneware mugs at a table while finishing that morning paper. In so few years, we’ve reversed it all.
Now, we get out of our cars to get gas and stay inside them to eat. At what cost and to what benefit? Is self-serve cheaper, faster, or better for the environment? Is a drive-thru the key to weight loss, better human interaction, or improved personal freedom?
Before sliding into some nostalgic coma, self-assured that before was better than after, we might consider critically our choices. Same the other way. Is after any better than before? As we reorder the nature of our lives, are we really finding improvement?
