Going into memorial day weekend, I wanted to get down some reminders of how things have never been better. It’s easy to point to war, tragedy or whatever is on the news, but that has and likely will forever be with us. Yet the small exercise that follows is a snapshot of my day, which I imagine will overlap pretty closely to the average American.
I had strange moment sitting out in a parking lot killing a little time. As I watched traffic roll by, I saw a guy in a relatively new truck drive by with an 80-plus inch TV strapped in the bed of the truck.
I thought… we must be out of problems.
A good reminder happens to all of us at one time or another; a refrigerator goes out, the power cuts off, the water is cut for a few hours. Suddenly, you see it. We are completely surrounded by miracles.
Zooming in I was also sitting in a relatively new luxury car with all the modern features: heated & cooled seats, every safety feature imaginable, the ability to connect a mini super computer to give me all the music and podcasts I could ever consume in an instant, as well as real-time traffic directions to any dumb question I ask the installed AI, and all engineered to have virtually no problems for the life of the vehicle. Those collectively and individually are miracles.
That same vehicle, which can drive and brake itself in some instances, travels on smooth and paved roads that allow me to travel hundreds of miles with relative ease. Historically, my current travels would have taken days, not hours, and further back in time could be fatal. Now on that same road, I’m thinking which professional musician I would like to entertain me, on par with royalty of the past, at virtually no cost. The Tokyo Philharmonic is my personal symphony. Those same devices allow me to see family’s faces in real time, in perfect clarity. I can speak with anyone in the world, at any time, at virtually no cost.
I come home to a condo with filtered air that is adjusted to the exact temperature of my liking. I have a refrigerator that preserves food and perishables for days and months at a time, full of food delivered from a grocery store that procures the best food on the planet, again for relatively little cost (thinking through what the cost would be to grow my own food, raise livestock, etc.).
Next to this is a water source of filtered and drinkable water available at all hours, rain or shine, and at virtually unlimited quantities. I have more bathrooms than people, and sanitary indoor plumbing 200 feet in the air. I get to shower in pre-heated and drinkable water. That one alone is wild.
Speaking of which, I’m sitting at a table overlooking Buckhead in a modern miracle of architecture consisting of steel, concrete and glass that doesn’t fall no matter what mother nature throws at it.
Let alone the miraculous electrical power we all have access to, at mere dollars a day. Think of the centuries of struggle of history suddenly solved by these modern conveniences. All of the lives lost to dehydration, starvation and disease all mitigated.
Don’t even get me started on modern medicine. I take prescriptions each morning for pennies a day that keep me alive and well. Think of the time and effort, if possible at all, for that to occur a century ago, let alone now in most areas of the world. I’m wearing glasses right now that allow excellent vision, that in a previous life would have left me struggling and a burden on most everyone. I have access to modern toothpaste that not only cures most all historical dental problems, but for only $3.00.
We all live better than any royalty that has ever existed in the past, and certainly live in better means than virtually all humans before us. If forced to live like royalty of several centuries ago, we would be horrified by the relative inconveniences afforded to the most privileged of any society of the past.
Caesar didn’t have indoor plumbing.
King Henry VIII didn’t have electricity.
This tweet from the cofounder of Stripe caught my attention, and encapsulates what I was seeing around me:
To add to all of the above conveniences, we all need some gratitude of how much work it takes to keep everything running. Everything naturally falls apart and it takes a whole host of people and effort to keep things running.
Last thing, this clip from Louis CK back in 2011 always stuck with me. I left off the miracle of flight, because he perfectly articulates the absolute miracle of it all:
Louis CK "Everything's amazing and no one is happy"
So as technology continues to progress, it’s easy to forget what all is around us. There are real problems in the world, but we are in an age where the historically worst ones aren’t a threat anymore.
And to all of that, I’m very grateful.
Will