"Okay. You know what, Hamilton? There's
a hardness I'm seeing in modern people. Those little moments
of goofiness that used to make the day pass seem to have gone. Life's
so serious now... I mean, nobody even has hobbies these days.
Not that I can see. Husbands and wives both work. Kids are
farmed out to schools and video games. Nobody seems to be able to
endure simply being themselves, either - but at the same time, they're
isolated. People work much more, only to go home and surf the Internet
and send e-mail rather than calling or writing a note or visiting each
other. They work, watch TV, and sleep. I see these things.
The whole world is only about work: work work work get get get...
racing ahead... getting sacked from work... going online... knowing computer
languages... winning contracts. I mean, it's just not what
I would have imagined the world might be if you'd asked me seventeen years
ago. People are frazzled and angry, desperate about money, and, at
best, indifferent to the future."
She grabs her breath. "So you ask me how do I feel?
I feel lazy. And slow. And antique. And I'm scared of
all these machines. I shouldn't be, but I am. I'm not sure
I completely like the new world."
Hamilton's jaws clench, and Karen sees this. "I know - you want
me to say how great everything is now, but I can't. It's pretty clear
to me that life now isn't what it ought to have become."
...
"I know what you mean," Hamilton says. "If you look at the world
as a whole, we have to admit life's good here where we live. But
in an evil Twilight Zone kind of way there's nothing else
to choose. In the old days there was always a bohemia or a creative
underworld to join if the mainstream life wasn't your bag - or a life of
crime, or even religion. And now there's only the system.
All other options have evaporated. For most people it's the System
or what... death? There's nothing. There's no way out
now."
Ask whatever challenges dead and thoughtless beliefs:
When did we become human beings and stop being whatever it
was we were before this?
What was the specific change that made us human?
Why do people not particularly care about their ancestors
more than three generations back?
Why are we unable to think of any real future beyond, say,
a hundred years from now?
How can we begin to think of the future as something enormous
before us that also includes us?
Having become human, what is it that we are now doing or
creating that will transform us into whatever it is that we are slated
to next become?
What is destiny? Is there a difference between personal
destiny and collective destiny? "I always knew I was going to
be a movie star. I always knew I was meant to murder."
Is Destiny artificial? Is it unique to Man? Where did Destiny
come from?
