Wheeling modernity

The term invention is a fascinating one. The archaic dictionary defines it as the act of finding while the sociologic meaning lays emphasis on the creation of new culture or patterns or traits.  One look down the barrel of inventions and it is easy to understand why the sociology meaning is the more relevant one to our everyday lives.

From the wheel to electricity to the invention of the airplane or the telephone or even computing, on today’s arc of modern inventions there are no real discoveries but more of evolving the existing know-how into newer and portable forms.  Most of the older inventions dotted the historical timeline as significant and were considered to be life altering as they forced existing mindsets into a drastic change mode and chartered the course of further development.  Today, we do not bother about most of the old inventions, unless unavailable. Any of these are omnipresent and accessible to almost every section of society today, either permanently or temporarily, sometimes freely or even cheap. These ‘were’ significant as they changed the way humans lived their lives and paraphrased what we knew then as ‘normal life’. The biggest invention in the last 20 yrs has been the internet and that was probably the last that impacted everyday life. Like every thing significant it took us some time to fully embrace it. As we progress rapidly by digitizing and collating and organizing everything we ever owned or understood, we haven’t really been able to push mainstream changes. Modern inventions are centered around size and form and function. Today’s inventive buzzword is access. As we strive tirelessly to make the external world accessible to our internal lives, the essence of our existence is seemingly culminating into one word – experience.

Experience, has become the organizing principle of modern lives. The world today seem to have shrunk as a set of experience options. Travel, global festivals call out to those who are willing to rediscover everything from cultures to brands. If earlier travel was about lugging back the unfamiliar into the familiar, today, memories from travel are digital glimpses and chunks of new experiences. Today we need to upgrade and update in order to up trade our lives. We make more things familiar  and expand our awareness hoping that the circumference of our referencing will  hold our magnified selves in higher light. As societies progress from within, the ambition to expand its horizon is obvious but today’s symbols are more participation than conquer. In an informed world where nothing is a real discovery the emphasis is on adding sharper pixels to an existing image and adding 3D like depth is an immersive experience. Our experience anxiety appreciates and rewards moments of discovery.   

Why experience thrives in the modern world, is because it is the surrogate of consumption. No longer do you have to purchase or transact in order to experience. Modern life is full of experience zones where people can saunter and realize newer ways to live, courtesy the lives of others, who so proudly put up their experiences on digital walls.  In an increasingly affluent and youthful world, experience is a valid currency as it performs the unimaginable act of opening our minds to multiple possibilities. An experience alone is considered to be an intellectual pursuit, capable of oiling the ever rusting boredom of life. The beauty of an experience is that it has several exits for one to return to the warm coziness of their reality.  Someone said, experience is what you gain when you do not get what you want.

Mankind has always been about aggregating positive experiences, we planned and organized our lives in a manner that facilitated more positives to eliminated the negative ones.  So if you are wheeling the baby on a pram into a mall you are only freeing your hands for a visual thrill that could possibly enrich and expand the social idea of you.  So do not forget to keep your eyes open as you take a flight into the visual world. So what if the economy is down – our digital bank balance is swelling with experiences.  I like !