A purposefully broken hourglass and a fractured mirror

Many years ago, I watched a movie called Back to the Future, Part II that supposedly took place in the year 2015 predicting things like flying cars and portable fusion power. Sadly, we are not there yet. As a society we are talking about wide use of drones ad that alone will lead to much air traffic congestion. Just this morning, I caught a CNN news segment about Selma, Alabama that used a drone. It was the first time a drone was used in their news segment. CNN’s drone segment was a quiet first that may signal a rapid change of things to come.   What else will mark the year 2015? We are already three months in and 2015 does not seem like it will be anywhere near the 2015 of Back to the Future, Part II.

At the beginning of this year, a time capsule was opened in Massachusetts that had been closed off in 1795.   Many were excited to see what would have been deemed so grand and important to be capsuled. Within the capsule, there were five folded newspapers, a title page from Massachusetts’ colony records, a Massachusetts commonwealth seal, and 24 coins.   Such contents, disappointed many onlookers and media reporters.

If we were today to put together contents for a capsule it certainly wouldn’t include a newspaper, as those are now almost obsolete. As for coins, most certainly the penny wouldn’t be deemed important enough to include. Although, it might be interesting to include both a newspaper and a penny to show what we no longer are as a society.

In a time capsule, we might very well consider putting in an Ipod, Iphone, and Ipad. I know my son would most certainly believe that an Ipad would be important enough to put in a capsule as long as it wasn’t his. The selfie stick, that we have seen travelers don on mountaintops, has now invaded the office workspace and might as well be placed in a time capsule.

In this point in time, we might as well place a well-preserved snowflake in the capsule to capture the big story of this winter season where over total snowfall this season is over 106 inches in the Boston area. What more can we expect this year?

If Queen Elizabeth still reigns on Sept. 10, she’ll surpass Queen Victoria as Britain’s longest-reigning monarch. That certainly will lead to much pop and circumstance.   Further, at that time it may be apparent that the next US election will see a face off between Job Bush and Hilary Clinton-our own version of royalty. Furthermore, in terms of funnyman royalty David Letterman’s last show as host of The Late Show is scheduled for May 20. I came of age watching David Letterman’s Top Ten list. I assume he will have a last one that day and as such that list should be put in a time capsule. That top ten list was something we looked forward to at 11:30pm. Nowadays, we need not wait till that hour. Everything is accelerated these days. Perhaps a purposefully broken hourglass should also be put in a time capsule to represent the instant gratification sense of our present day.

Yes, a purposefully broken hourglass would represent many facets of our daily lives. Everything from social media, to the selfie-stick to the closing of many weekly magazines could be represented by a broken hourglass.

In terms of my own life, turmoil and unsteadiness are part of my everyday life. I left a job I had held for ten years for a new adventure. In this process, I am caught between two cities living in two time zones in my mind. Most definitely a map and a broken hourglass would represent my life in a time-capsule.

The sun is firmly out while the mega piles of snow hold steady. I’m sipping my coffee wondering which of my hundred things I need to get done, I will laser-focus in on.  Sadly, we don’t get many instances in which we can just hone in on one thing and focus on that. Now, that I think about it a fractured mirror would just as well represent our here in now, just as a well as a broken hourglass.

Hopefully, there will be some invention that is not a flying car (although supposedly Google is working on that) that will help us slow down just a bit. If so, that should get top honors in a time capsule. However, I don’t see that coming anytime soon. For the moment, society as a whole will continue to be a slave to accelerated time.

Onwards.