Event Horizon?

My Dad turned 87 last week, my mother-in-law turned 90. While I could only talk to my dad on a video call due to distance, my in-laws held a large celebration.  We went away for the week, staying in a rental up in Yorkshire. It was a fabulous break.

These kind of events always make me think of the past - and I'm not referring to my last post about my dog. I think about when my dad was the same age as I am now. I think about time differences. Forty years ago doesn't feel that far back to me, but when my Dad was my age, forty years before was firmly in the 50s. Even when I was a kid, and he was in his mid-30s, WW2 was only 30 years in the past. A very different time.

Last week, I realised I have known people who were born in three different centuries. As a kid, I knew people who were born in the 1800s.  They say you can't put an old head on young shoulders, but I would love to see some of those people again, and ask questions about their lives. Even my Grandfather, who did tell me stories about his younger life.  I have so many more questions now, that will never be answered.

As I mentioned, 40 years ago doesn't feel that long ago to me. The 80s, a time when I was younger and my friends and I had a lot of fun. And because we don't notice gradual change, we forget how different everything was then.

Change continues, and it's getting faster and faster. Technology is developing faster than we can manage it. The singularity approaches, and we are so close to the event horizon - if we haven't passed it already.  apart from the spaceships and trips to other planets, this is the world I read of as a young reader. And I mean that both positively and negatively, depending on which book I was reading.

But I want the interstellar ships and to see other planets. Bring them on!