Have you ever wondered ‘Did I Do Something Wrong?’ or Are You Living In A Forgotten World?
Imagine discovering a wonderful place.
At first, you were a little shy to approach it. But soon, you’d worn a track between your home and this special place. You told your friends about it, and they soon joined you – so the track grew wider.
At the other end, you and your friends met up with a bigger group of friends. They loved your company. You loved meeting up with them. There was a great deal of laughter and love shared over many cups of coffee, tea and celebratory drinks.
As your friendships grew, it made sense to travel in a vehicle together – then a bus, then a bus system. Eventually so many people were using the bus system that a train system was installed. All this new technology was great. It got you there quicker, more efficiently. There were more and more choices of times to travel. You could stand at the train station and just wait for the next train, knowing it would take you to where you wanted to go.
But one day, you stood at the train station and waited for the next train. But there was no train. You waited for the next few hours. Still, no train. You would have asked someone what had happened. But you were the only one there.
You went back there the next day. And the next. And possibly even the next. Waited all day. Still no train.
Overhead, you noticed planes flying. You hadn’t taken notice of them before. You grabbed your binoculars and looked at the tail-end of a plane ‘Faster BB’.
What is this ‘Faster BB’? you wondered.
But there was no-one to ask. Because everyone else had gone on board the plane. And somehow, you’d missed it. You didn’t even know where the terminal was.
You ask yourself, did I do something wrong?
Or are you living in a forgotten world?
This scenario happens every time new technology is rolled out without consultation or information in an understandable form–whenever someone is in a hurry to change something, without taking the time to think about who it will affect.
How many people are stuck at home in Australia, unable to communicate with the outside world because their telephones have been cut off with the roll-out of the NBN? How many people are unable to access public transport because nobody’s ever asked the people who don’t use it, what is stopping them?
How many elderly people are confused because the highways in their brain have not been considered when IT and Social media experts have had a new idea?
How many people who spent many years developing their own coping mechanisms are now considered mentally ill because they’re expected to change at the next whim of creative designers who have made their new design shinier and ‘more economical’—supposedly—to the bean counters.
Before we change for the sake of it, consider the paths–the highways–that have taken years to develop. Let’s not discard them, for in doing so, we are devaluing the lives of others, both now and their history.
And history ignored is oft repeated.