Innovation- how technology can change a society.

How many have tried walking like for hours to get to your destination when cars are rare. The love notes you shyly asked someone to pass over to your crush. Having to wait for your grandmother’s chickens to grew a little bigger before you could eat some meat. Perhaps a neighborhood of five sharing one TV on a weekly basis playing a single movie repeatedly until someone bought a new VHS? These days every house has it’s own TV at least and a ref.
I’ve always like talking about my hometown but I guess it doesn’t just happen there but also it does happen anywhere. First off, were a farming community, it’s our main livelihood and is still until now with a little twist. Before, we farm for one basic purpose which is to eat and has enough to sustain our children’s education. We commute a lot, we borrow our neighbors cars when it’s time to harvest, radio is our common source of information or news. Only a few have mobile phones and it’s enough if a household owns one. Our electricity bills are cheaper, obesity is not an issue as well as those diseases that comes with it, few teenagers were into smoking or gambling, more recreational activities, more gossiping, more story telling and others. We’re more into interpersonal relationships and perhaps the effect of it is we do know each others life story. Because we do not have other things to distract us that we like butting in into other peoples lives, talking about their misfortunes or achievements. We actually had more time on planning creative activities that our community could have on certain occasions which we do have a lot like youth camps, religious gatherings where our children of different sects are collected to perform from singing to dancing or acting, an annual one week festival where some people from nearby places are encouraged to participate, and etc.
Years pass by and the farm lands are becoming wider hence the mountains are turning into small terraces, the houses becomes bigger which is inversely proportional the number of people that lives there, a family car of not just one but two, teenage racing for the latest mobile phones and loaded it with game apps rather than actually playing outside. More friends on fb than actual friends, trending on latest fashion and being mindful about having a beautiful body or face. The society changed on how they address education and their evaluation of a good life relies on either your educational attainment or your wealth. The faster a technology is being upgraded the more impact it gives to the society. It is undoubtly true that our lives became easier with these new innovations such as washing clothes won’t need too much time and physical labor since we don’t just have washing machines but also dryers. Cooking is easier and you don’t have to plan on your meals, just have a pile of canned goods, instant noodles, pre packed cup cakes and there’s even ready made pancakes wherein all you need to do is add water. Having a morning coffee?, try the new flavor of three in one Nescafe or perhaps you could bu all the different flavors to enjoy a different taste each day hence why suffer into the usual process of drying, toasting and grinding of coffee beans when there is something more flavorful and widely available. There is no harm in dreaming of a better life with more money, having great careers or pushing hard on your profession, achieving your dream job with all the luxury and wealth. No one really wants to work hard toiling the soil everyday and being stuck on dirt and mud. I mean who doesn’t want to have lot’s of money and travel the world or have the biggest house, probably own the latest gadgets, or go to Hongkong for dinner and come home the next day hence every update on latest innovations changes the mindset of the society. The projected better life is harder to attain and it builds a competition. Lesser are those days you asked a friend for a hitch ride since you have your own and some are dissatisfied they may constantly change or add another one. Instead of having more time preparing nutritious food for your children, the mother would just toss a few frozen foods on the pan and is busy watching her favorite tele-series on their big flat screen. The father relies on paying more laborers since he had a vast farm that he cannot work on alone hence he utilized his earnings on paying others to work for him. Apart from that, it is a must to have an abundant harvest hence the farming technique is adjusted in a way that it copes on providing more rather than enough and it means more pesticides and fertilizers. A wrapped old toy for gift giving is a sign of inconsideration, a sign of poverty that brings shame to the one who’s giving. A reward system for children is not already on five star stamps on their hands or candies but rather on higher grades, money and materialistic things. Instead of working with your classmates to tutor those who cant seem to catch up with the subject matter, the incidence of arrogance among those who are intelligent becomes higher and those who are slow learners are being left out to an instance that soon they became what they called a problem to the society. The pressure trying to compensate and fit the criteria of being a good student who were excelling academically accompanied by societal pressure of abandonment or a common view of a pest destroying the community for being a problem child leads more teenagers to dwell in alcoholism, smoking, drugs or their bizarre behavior trying to always play against the rules. The society is being governed biasedly by wealthy and intelligent people and those who don’t belong to those two categories have no right to be heard or mingle. Instead of an idea formulated from many to one, it is reversely done from one to many.
There are good points too that comes a long with certain development such as lesser time for gossiping and more time to mind our own business. However, it a start of a comparison, envy, jealousy, trying to win a competition, the wanting more attitude and the unfulfilled satisfaction, the unhappiness brought about by failure on areas that does not actually matter such as sending your children to the best school on a degree that is falsely advertised by the media or your neighbor as something that ensures a good career path. Perhaps you envy your friend for having a daughter or a son who is a doctor that you pressured your children to have earn the same profession or you simply want them to fulfill your lost dreams. We’re making time move quickly as we’re doing things unproductively. We’re putting value on things that are invaluable and positioning them in front of us instead of behind. There is lesser time to play as there is lesser freedom of choice nor expression. More friends on Facebook than real friends which you can’t keep. Enclosing your children at your house to play more video games rather than letting them off to meet real people and play with them. To cut it short, we cannot live a simple life with satisfaction. We dwell too much on chasing an invisible definition of a better life that we tend to add variations every time which makes it more difficult to find hence we always ends up with lots of failures, misery and unhappiness.
On my personal view, innovation nor technology isn’t a bad thing but we choose to nurture a parasite that has been born with it. Our society is dying and all I’m saying is we still have a choice to go back and fix it- it only depends on our willingness to accept and reverse our mindset.

A Coffee Break

          One mid afternoon, I was drinking my coffee alone at the sala when I  realized that coffee was indeed bitter in taste yet has an unique distinctive aroma. I’m not an avid fan of coffee but I do have them most of the time and what I enjoyed most is finding new flavors. Like the coffee, our lives are full of mystery and mostly adversity and most often we lived based on skeptical decisions. A bitterness we tend to experience everyday yet we do get different flavors which would either brighten or darken some of our days. Yet, what about this so called coffee breaks? To experience what I mean, then try going to a coffee shop and sip on a real mug and let your gadgets be out of sight for a while.
I once entered a Starbucks cafe at Robinson’s Mall in Manila and when I was inside, I felt that there’s something special. First, it wasn’t the expensive coffee or its’ popular label but it was the aura of that place. I saw women leaning back on their seat while smoking, a couple trying to decide what bread will they order, strangers sharing a table, a young woman at the corner reading some magazine, an old man flipping the latest news paper and a lot more.
The library and cafe share a common trait, both of these place offers serenity and serendipity of ourselves. We are living in a world on a night-day or day-night basis by which the time only ticks forward. Each of us is running on our own race track in this fast paced world being said that you’ve just bought the latest i-phone and tomorrow you’ll find a new model on the advertisements. We are bombarded with all the requirements of trying to have a better life that often times instead of brewing our own coffee we choose to drink our coffee on plastic cups which totally defies the essence of having one. Yes, we can still have those bucket size of coffee we want and it always work especially when we’re muti-tasking but the thing is, we missed it’s bitterness, the aroma and we end up like drinking a cup of water that by the last sip you might end up wanting another one. A common habit that leads us to have more and enjoy less.
Back in the cafe,  people turned off their phones to catch up on old friends rather than chatting on facebook, or seemingly just letting time pass by as they lay all those misfortunes or worries that had been happening, or to celebrate over few achievements, or to meet a stranger , or simply treating yourself a cup of coffee just to say Hi and get to know more of yourself. It is amazing to see that a full place like this wasn’t as chaotic as the world, in fact the smell of coffee fills the air with a soothing aroma, the sound of teaspoons swirling at the lid of the glass  was a gateway denoting a long conversation, the gulp every time you sip was a fulfilling one to quench the thirst of our mind for some calmness and our body for some rest. This is what a coffee break is, it’s not really about the coffee or the break but simply enjoying both. We skipped a lot of amenities of being happy, of being our true self, of searching what we want, of carefully planning our future, and especially- giving ourselves a time to breath.
So as I lay down my cup that afternoon, I said to myself ‘ thank you and until we meet again for a second cup’. Hence, when are you planning to take yours?