On how many levels can we all be confused? Technical advancements have left many of us behind; social issues cause great consternation; and international affairs are simply baffling to the point where we just don’t keep up.
I am going to assume, without any basis in experience from eras gone by, that because we are so overwhelmed with information, which seems to be a recent occurrence, many of us have just said “to hell with it.” We have necessarily become selective as to which news or latest development we will pay attention to. (I know, never end a sentence with a preposition, but the latest trends show….well, you see where I am going here.)
I’m still trying to work up the excitement evidently expected of me for the iPhone 4, and we are already on 6. I have a lot of celebrating to do in a short period of time just to stay current.
I don’t think I am the only one in this sad fix. In fact, I know I am not given the tone and the content of conversations I have all the time with people I know, and some whom I have no idea who they are. But I do value their opinions. Oh, sure.
This whole line of thinking, and the accompanying despair that the world is moving on rapidly without me hanging on, has been brought about by several developments of recent origin.
The first is that it finally occurred to me that government is in the same sad fix I’m in. Nobody knows what to do, if anything can be done, about Global Warming. We don’t even have consensus that such climate change is occurring. You can’t move toward resolution if you don’t have agreement on the basic premise.
Our own City Council continues to dither on decisions regarding public transportation (Uber), historic preservation (numerous examples), zoning (Habana Café), law enforcement (NOPD), visitor accommodations (short-term rentals), and just about every other issue they face.
I think they know that if they make any decisions at all, the rush of technology and social demands will overwhelm what they decide, so they just delay decisions to the next meeting. Maybe in that time technology will go away. I am sympathetic to their dilemma because often no matter what they decide, the market will decide on its own and it may not be what they came up with. (Drat, another preposition at the end. Sorry. Just assume it will happen again and we’ll move on.)
Then there are developments in the staid and conservative wine world. Are you up on background about GSM, or the great Chenin Blancs coming out of South Africa, or the Sauvignon Blancs from Chile, or Torrontes from Argentina? How about that mess with Syrah out of Australia?
How about that weather disaster this year in Burgundy? Did you hear that last week parts of Tuscany were socked by horrible weather, possibly including a tornado? Do you know what those things do to vines full of fruit?
The world of spirits has not been left out of the changes. Suddenly apple cider is in everything, and when did the Bloody Mary get hot, as in popular not spicy, again? Every new Mexican restaurant is happy to offer you 12 iterations of a mojito. Most folks don’t even know what a mojito is, let alone make a choice from a dozen different flavors. As to the new tidal wave of Mexican restaurants about to overtake us, Mr. Robert Payton will be filling us in as information becomes available.
And don’t even get me started on Smartphone apps. You know, those little pieces of software for your cell phone that perform tasks which may or may not need performing. The beverage world is in a veritable explosion of such offerings.
You can review drink recipes with videos of how to make anything, look up unheard-of spirits and see how they are being used, check out the latest news on the harvest, see if some drinker in Chicago likes the same thing you do and what did he have to say about it, determine if you are paying too much for wine, and verify your blood alcohol level to see if you should drive a car or operate heavy machinery.
You are not really in the middle of a revolution but you are a full participant in the fastest evolution the world has ever experienced. It’s not going to get any easier to assimilate information nor are we likely to catch up with the speeding train that has become 21st century America.
I have no insight or advice here. Just hang on and do the best you can do. Fix yourself a drink of something familiar and simple. Sit back. Put the computer and the phone down. Take a breath. Think when you were 10 years old and all the terrible problems you had. Wish in vain for those days to return.
And then fix yourself another drink.
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