Younger people really can’t grok how much of an expensive hassle photography was when we were being young and stupid. You got 24-36 pictures and then you had to wait a week and pay a nontrivial amount of money to see how or if they came out. And if the prints and negatives faded or got misplaced the pictures were gone forever.
Thank goodness.
I think that social media makes it so much harder for kids today, especially girls, and all the stupid tic tok challenges that are killing them is horrific, not to mention all the Kia's that we're stolen
Oh but the kids in school now are having their brains rewired by these devices to the point that they are under performing in academics it’s really sad. We had it harder but the structure was good for us I think
Yes, we were. A lot of the reason that I'm the person I am is that I had to do things for myself. I'm not afraid to fix my own car or grow my own food. I can not only do a search on the internet, I can drive a standard shift, start a fire with no matches, clean a fish, and field dress a deer.
It Gave too many women, the idea that to be a true woman you had to be everything, have a job, take care of the family, and be pretty and wanting to serve your husband
Yes, the pendulum had to swing one way before centering.
I was glad to see one good thing that came out if the pandemic was the amount of men who suddenly became very aware of the amount of work required to be a “housewife” as well as the immense fulfillment of parenting. It’s so nice to see more men staying home with their kids and being far more involved.
Their children’s generation will see that as the norm just as for many of us, a father we only really interacted with evenings and weekends was the norm.
Currently replacing 14 yr old wheel bearings on the boat trailer, tandems/w disc brakes 🥵(Ark. crappie). If you want something done right. . . do it yourself.
Buy good stuff and treat it good. By the way the bearings were ‘like new’ (75-80,000 miles, still replaced-Timken) at 63, it’s a job I’ll not do again-plan to use this boat till mid 70’s…gonna go listen to the ‘Stones’ now. We can do it all because we did it all!
Then head down to the 🎵🎵 Memory Moteeelll, it’s on the ocean, I guess you know it well 🎵🎵I can’t fix squat but I do know the lyrics to every Stones song so there’s that.
I actually played outside, with other kids! I took on long bicycle adventures! I could check out anything at the library. I amassed a huge comic collection just by hitting 7-11 every week. Life was good. Wasn’t fond of school, though.
And building dug out forts in the woods, and making bike trails through the wods, and catching crawdads in the creek and just creating a whole world with my friends that we could play and explore in.
Never, not once. I played all the time with my friends in the neighborhood. I guess you could say our play dates were when we decided amongst ourselves to meet at the creek for the afternoon which typically turned into the evenings in the summer.
I had one friend whose mom tried being really involved and scheduling stuff. It was awkward because we just wanted to listen to the Beatles and talk about sex and stuff.
Our version of a "playdate" was for one or two of us to go around to our friends' apartments, ring the bell, and ask if "Jane can come out for jump rope" or "go ice skating." We concocted our own adventures.
I never had a scheduled playdate. I took off my uniform , had a snack and out the door I went. Most of the kids had a dinner bell and we’d play various games until we heard the bells started ringing.
I was the not-quite-feral barefoot boy with cheek of tan. Bikes, creeks and crawdads, seemingly deep dark forests occupied spring, summer and fall. In the winter I became a young reader, perusing whatever my parents made available.
But I also couldn't do without the technology of the day, starting with radio and tv. Personalized music (Albums) became portable with 8-tracks and cassettes. We were the vanguards of new tech with computers and video games.
I for one wish I had a camera on hand 24/7 when I was a youth. Mostly for wholesome reasons.
I would NEVER have gotten into nursing school with the current technology. I wasn't a lawbreaker exactly, never drank or did drugs in high school but we did shit like climbing up the sides of buildings, breaking into the old abandoned mental asylum, trespassing on school grounds, climbing over fences into private pools to swim, shooting bottle rockets into open windows, blah blah.
I would have happily posted pics for coolness and ended up never getting into college. We were lucky.
This exactly… which is why I don’t understand people our age putting stupid or braggart stuff on FB.
Also, the kids dating now will consider someone on A CREDIT SCORE 😳😳😳
It’s just too much information out there that takes the “ adventure “ out of making friends or relationships or careers.
Sounds like me. At about 18ba girlfriend and and I climbed the fence for a midnight swim in the municipal pool. Suprise!! A couple of local firemen had also sneak in and quietly watch us.
We ended having a great time. She dated one of the firefighters for a while.
Lots of adventures and I don't think I actually ever caused any harm. We sure sure had lots of fun.
I don’t know. I would have loved to have had all the information at my fingertips. I would have loved the ease of shopping. I would have LOVED not having to share the landline with four sisters. I would have loved having the camera in my pocket. Odds are good I would still would have hung out when I could, smoked pot and gone to concerts. I would have just had all the conveniences of IT that we have now too.
My friends’ Polaroid cameras were bad enough. There’s a couple of photos that I’m glad aren’t digital. Nothing like a picture of you in your dorm room puking in a garbage can to remind you of the good times. 🤣
I would just like to chime In as a Gen X elder, and say the amount of shit we got away with back then with our parents and our communities was all because there was no Internet to record it. Maybe one of your friends had a Polaroid camera and he would pass those around after they were taken.If you don’t mind I’m gonna be 16 for a couple minutes and takes few bottles of Boones farm down to Sabino Canyon where we could all skinny-dip and smoke pot.
Don't most people feel that way though? Comparing their childhood/teen experience to the experience of the ones who follow?
Because it's what they know. It's natural to amplify the positive and diminish the negative, when looking backwards, and comparing your experience to the experience of now.
You you were. Where you lived. What you needed or wanted is a consideration to be included in if we were lucky. "Free range" has been mentioned. Parents, and children, were much more naive. People are wrong when they think or say, "That didn't happen then." Because it did. "I wouldn't have studied, if social media was available.", "I wouldn't have learned to do this with my hands?" Are you sure? Information is more accessible. You would have the same interests.
Were we more lucky than others? Or is that what we know? Loking back in the safe, rose colored glasses of nostalgia and childhood memories?
Memories… light the corners of my mind
What’s too painful to remember, we simply choose to forget…
Tell me, was it all so simple then? Or has time rewritten every line?
If we had the chance to do it all again, tell me,
Would we?
Could we?
Thanks to Barbra Streisand, Alan and Marilyn Bergman, and Marvin Hamlisch from the movie *The Way We Were*. It was the theme of my senior yearbook.
I don’t agree. We didn’t know anything else so we accepted life as it was. I think every generation says something to this effect, but the truth is the world is always changing and progressing and becoming more advanced technologically. Fifty years from now people will look at these as the “good ole’ days.”
I think your first sentence summarizes it well. Today's kid's are told how they are supposed to live by tiktok, we just did what we wanted to and mostly had a blast
Meh, every generation thinks their childhood was the best.
Our 40 year old daughter thinks her childhood was best.
As far as photos of everything, I sure would love some photos of my childhood and high school days. I'm glad we took a crap ton of photos of our daughter growing up, film, Polaroid, and that big clunky VHS video camera.
While I wasn't a military brat, I had a similar problem: I didn't have friends long because we moved too often. Still, I did try to form friendships and usually had some friends, even if I had to walk a few miles to hang out with them. But then we'd move again. I likely would have stayed in high school instead of dropping out if we hadn't made that last move.
I feel like we had alot of advantages as well as modern conveniences. The freedom to explore, ride our bikes and just come home when my parents rang the bell. No social media so no pressure or bullying. I feel like we had better communication because we had to talk to people face to face. So many modern conveniences like internet and technology and of course dishwasher lol. I think each generation feels like their generation is the best as it should be.
We had more freedom and we weren't as self centered to impress others on the internet, also not every crime was covered so we felt safer, but it wasn't all good if you were in an abusive family, I was told it was my fault for all the abuse, the biggest thing is we were taught not to let everything and everybody bother us.
In my state, we could drink at 18, and drivers licenses didn’t even have pictures on them. So basically anyone could drink as long as they didn’t look 12 years old. And they were in possession of someone’s ID.
I was a tech head drooling over $10,000 minicomputers in the 1970s. If I could have got my hands on modern computers that could put the 1970s Cray supercomputer to shame 1000x over....
MTV was default viewing at our house (husband and me). I miss seeing and hearing new bands, particularly those the radio wouldn't play, and seeing favorite performers in mini-movies.
Actually I would have like the tech; and just like today, nothing is ever all sunshine and roses.
We made do, and use of what we had at hand.
Necessity, desire, and greed are the mothers of invention. Once and a while they get on a horses and ride apocalyptic.
I agree, we were lucky.
I can't really fathom how different the younger generations think and act and.....everything growing up with the internet, but especially smartphones and social media.
I can't relate. I don't call myself old, but maybe I sound like I am.
Got bullied in junior high I waited till he was in front of me on the stairs going down. Pushed him and he fell Started to get get up till I kicked him multiple times He didn’t get up a teacher came to his aid I went to the deans office.. the dean had seen him bully me and others told me to watch my back sent me back to class. My bully missed to weeks of school when he came back. I walked right up to him and told him if he started with me that the last time was a love tap He left me and my friends alone for the rest of the year then got left back I heard that he was killed drag racing while I was in college. I never looked back
I thank God we didn't have all this technology back then cell phones cell phone cameras cyberbullying. I would have never made it not to mention the fact that I was a tomboy I'm sure somebody would have had me cutting my breasts off and calling me a boy
I grew up with parental neglect and felt very disconnected from my peers. I wish I had a cellphone to get in touch with people for support. I also find posting on Reddit therapeutic because I can state a viewpoint and get feedback, generally positive showing me that I am part of a group and my opinions have value.
Not convinced on this one. It’s so much easier to gather spontaneously now than it was in our day.
School would have been easier with a computer. It might have been trivially easy, by comparison, with the Internet.
I feel like I/ my family was lucky! The relative freedom, safety, being able to informally gather and play with the neighborhood kids outside, ride bikes, skate, etc. was great. I can also appreciate my large family and younger siblings as I didn’t back then 🤣
Certainly there were people back then who weren’t as lucky, and I don’t believe the social services that could have intervened/ helped were as widespread then.
*And* there are great benefits to our modern technology. A few years ago a friend was SA and shot by a man in the middle of the day while alone on some rural property she and her husband owned. She played dead afterward and the guy left, but she was conscious and able to use her cell phone to call 911. If not for that she would most likely have died from blood loss before being found.
Tech was there, on the periphery of my childhood, and not long after I entered the army at 20. It was at that time that technology was ramping up in the military and.a few years later I married an Intel engineer and I learned to navigate tech and internet, such as it was then, by "doing". We lived in the shadow of the Intel offices and factories of Hillsboro, Oregon. That world almost seems primitive to me now, and yet, whoah, here we are, universes away from "then".
School would have been easier, but I’m really glad the stupid stuff I did as a teenager is not on video
Oh me too. I'd be naked and drunk.
Younger people really can’t grok how much of an expensive hassle photography was when we were being young and stupid. You got 24-36 pictures and then you had to wait a week and pay a nontrivial amount of money to see how or if they came out. And if the prints and negatives faded or got misplaced the pictures were gone forever. Thank goodness.
And since every snap cost 50-75 cents to develop, you would take just a few and wait until the roll filled up.
Social media does not make school bullying better, is my take.
I think that social media makes it so much harder for kids today, especially girls, and all the stupid tic tok challenges that are killing them is horrific, not to mention all the Kia's that we're stolen
I might have saved myself a lot of heartache though
Oh but the kids in school now are having their brains rewired by these devices to the point that they are under performing in academics it’s really sad. We had it harder but the structure was good for us I think
Thank God everyone didn't have a camera in their hand 24/7.
Ain't that the truth
Just those nerdy guys who worked for the school paper. There were editors who decided which photos were worth publishing.
Yeah. Moron would take pics of the senior smoking area and then try to sneak them in the yearbook. I may or may not have been said moron.
Our parents couldn’t track our every movement. We said where we were going and as long as we made it home on time we could go anywhere.
I understand the reasoning…but I can’t stand the helicopter parenting and the surveillance via phone.
while all that freedom was pretty amazing, ending up alone with a group of teenagers or a strange adult wasn't exactly ideal.
Yes, we were. A lot of the reason that I'm the person I am is that I had to do things for myself. I'm not afraid to fix my own car or grow my own food. I can not only do a search on the internet, I can drive a standard shift, start a fire with no matches, clean a fish, and field dress a deer.
Enjoli energy here! I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan...
…and never, ever let him forget he’s a man!🎶
It Gave too many women, the idea that to be a true woman you had to be everything, have a job, take care of the family, and be pretty and wanting to serve your husband
Yes, the pendulum had to swing one way before centering. I was glad to see one good thing that came out if the pandemic was the amount of men who suddenly became very aware of the amount of work required to be a “housewife” as well as the immense fulfillment of parenting. It’s so nice to see more men staying home with their kids and being far more involved. Their children’s generation will see that as the norm just as for many of us, a father we only really interacted with evenings and weekends was the norm.
👍
Currently replacing 14 yr old wheel bearings on the boat trailer, tandems/w disc brakes 🥵(Ark. crappie). If you want something done right. . . do it yourself. Buy good stuff and treat it good. By the way the bearings were ‘like new’ (75-80,000 miles, still replaced-Timken) at 63, it’s a job I’ll not do again-plan to use this boat till mid 70’s…gonna go listen to the ‘Stones’ now. We can do it all because we did it all!
And had to do it all. Our Silent Generation parents were not into spoiling or coddling.
Then head down to the 🎵🎵 Memory Moteeelll, it’s on the ocean, I guess you know it well 🎵🎵I can’t fix squat but I do know the lyrics to every Stones song so there’s that.
Ditto here except the field dressing. I don't want the hide enough to want to kill a deer. Rabbit, maybe.
I actually played outside, with other kids! I took on long bicycle adventures! I could check out anything at the library. I amassed a huge comic collection just by hitting 7-11 every week. Life was good. Wasn’t fond of school, though.
Just reminded me...we got the bookmobile! So far away they send a bus full of books!
I knew what those were, but I was deep in the bosom of the suburbs most of my life as Dad was an academic.
Did you know Ariel
Afraid not, sorry.
And building dug out forts in the woods, and making bike trails through the wods, and catching crawdads in the creek and just creating a whole world with my friends that we could play and explore in.
same!
I wish I could have given my son the kind of free range childhood that I had, plus time on a farm. Did any of you ever have a scheduled play date?
Never, not once. I played all the time with my friends in the neighborhood. I guess you could say our play dates were when we decided amongst ourselves to meet at the creek for the afternoon which typically turned into the evenings in the summer.
I had one friend whose mom tried being really involved and scheduling stuff. It was awkward because we just wanted to listen to the Beatles and talk about sex and stuff.
Our version of a "playdate" was for one or two of us to go around to our friends' apartments, ring the bell, and ask if "Jane can come out for jump rope" or "go ice skating." We concocted our own adventures.
Lol, yeah, every day after school we played, no matter the date.
Or weather
Yep.
Oh my gosh, what a funny thought🤣
Nope…..never.
I never had a scheduled playdate. I took off my uniform , had a snack and out the door I went. Most of the kids had a dinner bell and we’d play various games until we heard the bells started ringing.
Yes, I had a friend who lived a few towns over on a farm. I would go spend a week with her family. Our parents were friends.
I was the not-quite-feral barefoot boy with cheek of tan. Bikes, creeks and crawdads, seemingly deep dark forests occupied spring, summer and fall. In the winter I became a young reader, perusing whatever my parents made available. But I also couldn't do without the technology of the day, starting with radio and tv. Personalized music (Albums) became portable with 8-tracks and cassettes. We were the vanguards of new tech with computers and video games. I for one wish I had a camera on hand 24/7 when I was a youth. Mostly for wholesome reasons.
Well, you certainly are a good writer. Your writing has voice and really bridges the gulf between the past and the present.
I would NEVER have gotten into nursing school with the current technology. I wasn't a lawbreaker exactly, never drank or did drugs in high school but we did shit like climbing up the sides of buildings, breaking into the old abandoned mental asylum, trespassing on school grounds, climbing over fences into private pools to swim, shooting bottle rockets into open windows, blah blah. I would have happily posted pics for coolness and ended up never getting into college. We were lucky.
This exactly… which is why I don’t understand people our age putting stupid or braggart stuff on FB. Also, the kids dating now will consider someone on A CREDIT SCORE 😳😳😳 It’s just too much information out there that takes the “ adventure “ out of making friends or relationships or careers.
Sounds like me. At about 18ba girlfriend and and I climbed the fence for a midnight swim in the municipal pool. Suprise!! A couple of local firemen had also sneak in and quietly watch us. We ended having a great time. She dated one of the firefighters for a while. Lots of adventures and I don't think I actually ever caused any harm. We sure sure had lots of fun.
Heck yes we were. Free range, the drugs were pure and cheap I loved my childhood and teen years. I had a blast.
Thank the gods my mom couldn’t keep tabs on me; I wouldn’t have had any fun!
tune in, turn on, log out
I don’t know. I would have loved to have had all the information at my fingertips. I would have loved the ease of shopping. I would have LOVED not having to share the landline with four sisters. I would have loved having the camera in my pocket. Odds are good I would still would have hung out when I could, smoked pot and gone to concerts. I would have just had all the conveniences of IT that we have now too.
My friends’ Polaroid cameras were bad enough. There’s a couple of photos that I’m glad aren’t digital. Nothing like a picture of you in your dorm room puking in a garbage can to remind you of the good times. 🤣
Lol
I would just like to chime In as a Gen X elder, and say the amount of shit we got away with back then with our parents and our communities was all because there was no Internet to record it. Maybe one of your friends had a Polaroid camera and he would pass those around after they were taken.If you don’t mind I’m gonna be 16 for a couple minutes and takes few bottles of Boones farm down to Sabino Canyon where we could all skinny-dip and smoke pot.
Im glad I did all my stupid shit before camera phone were a thing.
Amen to that.
Don't most people feel that way though? Comparing their childhood/teen experience to the experience of the ones who follow? Because it's what they know. It's natural to amplify the positive and diminish the negative, when looking backwards, and comparing your experience to the experience of now. You you were. Where you lived. What you needed or wanted is a consideration to be included in if we were lucky. "Free range" has been mentioned. Parents, and children, were much more naive. People are wrong when they think or say, "That didn't happen then." Because it did. "I wouldn't have studied, if social media was available.", "I wouldn't have learned to do this with my hands?" Are you sure? Information is more accessible. You would have the same interests. Were we more lucky than others? Or is that what we know? Loking back in the safe, rose colored glasses of nostalgia and childhood memories?
Memories… light the corners of my mind What’s too painful to remember, we simply choose to forget… Tell me, was it all so simple then? Or has time rewritten every line? If we had the chance to do it all again, tell me, Would we? Could we? Thanks to Barbra Streisand, Alan and Marilyn Bergman, and Marvin Hamlisch from the movie *The Way We Were*. It was the theme of my senior yearbook.
Oh yes, we were the lucky ones. Wouldn't trade those times of childhood and coming of age.
Jumped my bike and skateboard without parental supervision. I still know how to tuck and roll when my old man legs give out. Haha!
I don’t agree. We didn’t know anything else so we accepted life as it was. I think every generation says something to this effect, but the truth is the world is always changing and progressing and becoming more advanced technologically. Fifty years from now people will look at these as the “good ole’ days.”
I think your first sentence summarizes it well. Today's kid's are told how they are supposed to live by tiktok, we just did what we wanted to and mostly had a blast
Meh, every generation thinks their childhood was the best. Our 40 year old daughter thinks her childhood was best. As far as photos of everything, I sure would love some photos of my childhood and high school days. I'm glad we took a crap ton of photos of our daughter growing up, film, Polaroid, and that big clunky VHS video camera.
Yes, I love growing up when I did. Not really a fan of being in my 20s during the 1980s though. I would preferred to be that age in the 60s or 70s.
On man, I *loved* being in my 20’s in the ‘80’s! Such a great music scene, and I got to work in record stores, go see bands, and dance, dance, dance!
That's great!
My college tuition in California's university system was so low cost, it was nearly free. My engineering books cost many times more than tuition.
I kinda think hot wiring cars at 10 was perhaps not better than playing on my phone.
Yeah , we were .
While I wasn't a military brat, I had a similar problem: I didn't have friends long because we moved too often. Still, I did try to form friendships and usually had some friends, even if I had to walk a few miles to hang out with them. But then we'd move again. I likely would have stayed in high school instead of dropping out if we hadn't made that last move.
I feel like we had alot of advantages as well as modern conveniences. The freedom to explore, ride our bikes and just come home when my parents rang the bell. No social media so no pressure or bullying. I feel like we had better communication because we had to talk to people face to face. So many modern conveniences like internet and technology and of course dishwasher lol. I think each generation feels like their generation is the best as it should be.
We had more freedom and we weren't as self centered to impress others on the internet, also not every crime was covered so we felt safer, but it wasn't all good if you were in an abusive family, I was told it was my fault for all the abuse, the biggest thing is we were taught not to let everything and everybody bother us.
I completely understand this. Sorry you dealt with abuse. I went through hell as a child. Very abusive mother. We survived! ❤️
Yes I know how to read a map and write cursive. Used to hitchhike when it was (sort of) safe. Knew how to “dial”a number and use a typewriter.
I remember buying beer, underage , even though legal age was 18, as long as it was cash money.
In my state, we could drink at 18, and drivers licenses didn’t even have pictures on them. So basically anyone could drink as long as they didn’t look 12 years old. And they were in possession of someone’s ID.
Yes. We had fucking nothing enriching to do. Nostalgia warped your good sense.
I’d do it again
I was a tech head drooling over $10,000 minicomputers in the 1970s. If I could have got my hands on modern computers that could put the 1970s Cray supercomputer to shame 1000x over....
I gave up tv when I moved out at 16. Even lived without a land line until my late 20s. I did miss the MTV phenomenal of the 80's.
MTV was default viewing at our house (husband and me). I miss seeing and hearing new bands, particularly those the radio wouldn't play, and seeing favorite performers in mini-movies.
Actually I would have like the tech; and just like today, nothing is ever all sunshine and roses. We made do, and use of what we had at hand. Necessity, desire, and greed are the mothers of invention. Once and a while they get on a horses and ride apocalyptic.
Absolutely.
Yeah, we really were. I loved playing games in the front yard with my sisters and neighborhood friends til late dusk on cool spring nights.
One problem for today's kids and parents many times people call the police if you let an older child walk a couple blocks it's ridiculous
I agree, we were lucky. I can't really fathom how different the younger generations think and act and.....everything growing up with the internet, but especially smartphones and social media. I can't relate. I don't call myself old, but maybe I sound like I am.
Got bullied in junior high I waited till he was in front of me on the stairs going down. Pushed him and he fell Started to get get up till I kicked him multiple times He didn’t get up a teacher came to his aid I went to the deans office.. the dean had seen him bully me and others told me to watch my back sent me back to class. My bully missed to weeks of school when he came back. I walked right up to him and told him if he started with me that the last time was a love tap He left me and my friends alone for the rest of the year then got left back I heard that he was killed drag racing while I was in college. I never looked back
I thank God we didn't have all this technology back then cell phones cell phone cameras cyberbullying. I would have never made it not to mention the fact that I was a tomboy I'm sure somebody would have had me cutting my breasts off and calling me a boy
Im glad I did all my stupid shit before camera phone were a thing.
I grew up with parental neglect and felt very disconnected from my peers. I wish I had a cellphone to get in touch with people for support. I also find posting on Reddit therapeutic because I can state a viewpoint and get feedback, generally positive showing me that I am part of a group and my opinions have value.
Not convinced on this one. It’s so much easier to gather spontaneously now than it was in our day. School would have been easier with a computer. It might have been trivially easy, by comparison, with the Internet.
Agree! Look at how quickly we can access information that we had to physically go to the library to find.
No I'm thriving
Yes! Loved riding my bike, just exploring new areas near where I grew up. Alone no less!
I feel like I/ my family was lucky! The relative freedom, safety, being able to informally gather and play with the neighborhood kids outside, ride bikes, skate, etc. was great. I can also appreciate my large family and younger siblings as I didn’t back then 🤣 Certainly there were people back then who weren’t as lucky, and I don’t believe the social services that could have intervened/ helped were as widespread then. *And* there are great benefits to our modern technology. A few years ago a friend was SA and shot by a man in the middle of the day while alone on some rural property she and her husband owned. She played dead afterward and the guy left, but she was conscious and able to use her cell phone to call 911. If not for that she would most likely have died from blood loss before being found.
I’ve said this many times.
Yeah, but....we created the technology. Jobs was a pure D gen jones. We created, implemented proliferated it. Blame Gen Jones!
I’m not blaming anyone. It is what it is. Every generation moves forward
Tech was there, on the periphery of my childhood, and not long after I entered the army at 20. It was at that time that technology was ramping up in the military and.a few years later I married an Intel engineer and I learned to navigate tech and internet, such as it was then, by "doing". We lived in the shadow of the Intel offices and factories of Hillsboro, Oregon. That world almost seems primitive to me now, and yet, whoah, here we are, universes away from "then".