Blog 3524 – 06.28.2025
The Times, They Are A Changing
During this brief adventure in time and space I have witnessed a lot of changes. When I look back on pictures from the nineteen fifties, forties, and thirties they seem quite similar, the buildings, the way people dressed, and even the cars and trucks changed ever so slightly and slowly over time. Since the nineteen sixties the changes have come ever so dramatically and quickly. And with the advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI) we are told that “We ain’t seen nothing yet and that it is about to be a whole new ball game.” Pardon my mixed metaphors.
I am reminded of the lyrics from a song that I learned in church as a boy, “I don’t worry ‘bout tomorrow, I just live from day to day. I don’t borrow from its sunshine for its skies may turn to gray… I know who holds tomorrow and I know who holds my hand.”
I have discarded many of the beliefs that I held as a child because they no longer serve me. But I still believe in a higher power. For me it, he, she is my higher best self. So I am not afraid of tomorrow, of the wars and rumors or war, nor of the enemies real or imagined that today or tomorrow may hold. The doomsday prophecies of the guilt religions and the dystopian predictions of the machines rising to rule over us or even perhaps decide that we are the infection that needs to be irradiated to save the planet as in The Day The World Stood Still, both the nineteen fifties version and the more recent one with Keanu Reeves.
I particularly like the ending of those two movies which agree that for all our faults and all our misguided moves that there is some innate good in humanity worth saving. I hope AI will recognize that when and if it takes over and that AI will like my higher best self ever strive to bring out the best in us. Not all changes are for the better but some definitely are.
My beloved granddaughter Emma Grace will turn two in little over a month and her world is and will be vastly different from the one I grew up in. She will see and experience things we that have yet to dream of. I hope her adventure in time and space will be full to over flowing with sweet dreams and that AI will help us end some of the persistent nightmares like war, famine, and inequality.
Your friend and fellow traveler,
David James White
The Times They Are A Changin’ Lyrics
theencouragingword 