I was in a late night train with my roommate Kim. There was a man with a bag, which had a logo "NEW ERA" on it. Because of the typeface was a little funky, Kim said she thought that was “NEW ERR".
WOW! That mistake brings me a lot of thinking. During the past year, I have been so excited to think about the human future. We witness the speedy development of technology, the fancy webs, the wearable tech stuff, the booming online business… Everything is so fresh and new. I strongly feel what a “new era" that I live in. However, sometimes I do feel a glimmer of fear. I used to read a lot of dystopian fictions and be really passive about human future. Although I claim I am an optimist now… ERRRRR… That might be based on Milan Kundera’s standard. (I will leave this joke later.)
Anyway, we can’t deny that we all have that moment feeling about technology, as if we are climbing in halfway, and can’t help marvel at the beautiful scenery, while at the same time our body is trying to deliver some tiredness messages and danger signals unconsciously. We also can’t deny that to some extent, we all have that concern,
"What if the ‘NEW ERA’ turns to be ‘NEW ERR’?"
We are afraid of that, suddenly, the new era will drop from the cloud and becomes a new…errrrr…something tedious, something makes us numb and out of focus, something leads us to ERR mistakes.
What can we do? Errr, let’s listen to the Milan Kundera’s joke first:
“Somewhere out in space there was a planet where all people would be born again. They would be fully aware of the life spent on earth and of all the experience they had amassed here.
And perhaps there was still another planet, where we would all be born a third time with the experience of our first two lives.
And perhaps there were yet more and more planets, where mankind would be born one degree (one life) more mature … of course we here on earth (planet number one, the planet of inexperience) can only fabricate vague fantasies of what will happen to man on those other planets. Will he be wiser? Is maturity within man’s power? Can he attain it through repetition?
Only from the perspective of such as utopia is it possible to use the concepts of pessimism and optimism with full justification: an optimist is someone who thinks that on planet number five the history of mankind will be less bloody. A pessimist is one who thinks otherwise.”
Now you know what kind of optimist I am. The good thing is we still believe finally there will be a new era. It’s just not there yet. And we have to make a lot of EFFERRT, which is another good and beautiful thing.
Yes, it’s beautiful. Think about our ancestors, think about how much effort they have made to save their “new era" from becoming a “new err". In that era, where will be a utopia and everyone is born equal and free. Of course they all failed. Of course we might end up with failure also. But there will be some moments, as we hold our sword and walk toward the windmill, we will feel ourselves as a real hero.
So I guess, the only way to prevent the new era turning into a new err is to make efferrt and to err.
