Ephemera

It has a light side
It has a dark side
It binds the universe together

I say that first line to kids these days (and by "kids" I mean late teens to early 20s -- yes, I'm an old fart) and they just smile and nod. But looking into their eyes I see the same lack on comprehension that is their permanent state it seems. "You don't know what I mean do you?"

"Yeah. Uh… no. Not really."

So then I tell them the rest of it, and the very brightest of them get it. Others I have to draw a picture and explain all the details. Finally at some point the light comes on. They experience the shining revelation that there was a point to my seemingly random and illogical comment.

Suddenly, they wake up out of their stupefied existence and embrace a whole new, wide world of subtlety and nuance. They stop taking everything and face value and question what they hear and strive to understand the deeper meaning of human speech.

No. I'm lying. They just go back to nodding and smiling whenever they hear something they don't understand. They're pretty sure it supposed to be a joke, so they laugh. They think it makes them seem clever, but they don't realize they the dumbest thing you can do is laugh at a joke you don't get.

They ask a question and get "42" as the answer. It doesn't make any sense. They have no idea why the person would say that. They nod and laugh. But their eyes give them away. The clue light stays off. Suddenly they've become the punch line.

But, I'm not just talking about dumb kids -- the ones who'll have a hard time mastering the most important phrase of their life: "You want fries with that?" But, supposedly smart, well educated students -- this generations the brightest and the best.

When I was in High School, I was an average student. My math classes by year were Algebra I, Geometry, Algebra II, and Trigonometry. That's as far as I got. Not because I was dumb -- because I was average. Today, I hear students taking AP (advanced placement) Calculus II in high school. That should be a second year college course by the standards I went to school under. But ask them to do simple math. "Okay, six times eight, plus seven, what's that?"

Tell them "42." They'll believe you. When you laugh, they'll pull out a calculator and still get it wrong. But somehow they're passing math classes I never got to. How is this possible?

I weep for the future. Not the future to come, but the one I'm living in now. This is the 21st century. I was brought up to expect flying cars and personal jet packs. But, no, I was reading the wrong books. I should have paid more attention to H. G. Wells. I'm living in a society that's rapidly being taken over by Morlocks.

PS: Bizarre synchronicity. The blogging software I use for this throws up random quotes at the bottom on the page. When I previewed this the first time, the quote I got was: "The future is not something we enter. The future is something we create."—Leonard Sweet

We have to do better.