Tech no.

My friend, Craig, asserts that once a technology becomes affordable and available there is no stopping it; it will be adopted and become the new normal.

I argue that he is wrong, that we have the ability to analyze and choose. But I am probably the one who is wrong, at least in terms of outcomes.

The folks who yelled, “Get a horse!’ at the owner of the Model T that sat smoking by the roadside, ended up with a Model T of their own—or a Model A if they were slow-adopters.

For good and bad Mr. Ford’s affordable and widely available invention left a world that traveled on two or four feet in the dust.

We rarely question the wisdom of powering up three thousand pounds of car to carry a couple hundred pounds of human to the store to buy a dozen eggs.

Advertisements

Honest wear.

I learned the term “honest wear” from a guitar appraisal on The Antiques Road Show.

I have since heard it used repeatedly when one of their men in nice jackets looked at “this custom Gibson Les Paul” or “this classic Fender Stratocaster.”

According to the Antiques Road Show guys, there are many things you can do to an antique that lowers its value.

Like trim the edges, or glue it to non-archival cardboard, or strip off the tacky, crazed shellac “patina.”

But honest wear is okay.

The Never-Ending Adventures of God: Life looks back.

Episode three:

What had he done?

Having turned life loose, God was stunned by the speed and avidity with which it flashed across the universe.

Where he worked purposefully, deliberately, life rushed in.

Brainless, thoughtless, it ran rampant and amuck.

And yet, as he watched, it seemed to be changing, becoming more intricate, more nuanced and capable.

The equation that was life, learning from its own failed solutions, kept squaring in its complexity.