Do you sometimes feel like your wires are getting crossed because there's just too much information coming in? Well, you're not alone.
I watched an interesting video on Youtube the other day titled, 'A shockingly Accurate 1998 Prediction About Today And What Comes Next'. The video is an interview with Terence Mckenna, someone I'd never heard of until seeing this video. In it, he describes how time appears to be moving faster, even though our clocks are still keeping exact time and the day is still 24 hours long.
What is causing this phenomenon? It's something we're all feeling in sync. I already had an inkling of the cause... information overload! Never before in humanity's known history have humans been so exposed to information of any kind, of such a magnitude as we are seeing in our times. What once took months or years to learn can be crunched down into a few hours, days or weeks with online learning or self-taught education.
We are seeing news from around the world pop up in a matter of seconds. Much of it makes the world appear as if it's moving faster and totally collapsing. That is not the case (for now anyways). The news is part of the 'information' coming in with everything else. Never before have we been exposed to so much 'news' and it's come to the point where people are suffering from fear, anxiety, depression and God knows what other ailments as a result of overexposure. A good example: Who hasn't heard of the Mexican Navy sail ship colliding with the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday? Within hours, the news spread around the world!
All this 'information' hitting us at every angle possible like advertising, television, radio, podcasts and even road signs, may be a bit too much for many humans. It may explain why many are behaving strangely. I'm not an expert in psychology but we've all seen videos of people acting totally out of their minds. Yes, fentanyl and other horrible drugs are involved but there's a lot more at play here.
The printed word, which was only invented a mere few centuries ago (See: Gutenberg) had evolved in the form of newspapers, magazines and encyclopedias by the 1800's and was the main go-to for valuable information. It would take hours to read through a newspaper. It would take months to read through an entire encyclopedia, if not longer but in the early 1900's, information started streaming through the airwaves with the invention of radio technology.
I recall my Father telling me once how in his youth, the family would sit around the radio and listen to scheduled programs, especially his favorite show, 'The Shadow', a very popular comic character. All 239 episodes are available on the internet today. Suddenly, the atmosphere had changed. Information was coming in from a new angle (radio) and it changed not only how families behaved but also entire societies.
The next paradigm shift regarding the flow of information was, of course, television. It started with just a few channels but with the introduction of cable television in the 1970s, suddenly there were dozens of channels to choose from... yes dozens! I remember as a small child, visiting my big sister and her new husband and they had just gotten a brand new cable box with a bunch of buttons on it. Suddenly, we didn't have to get up to change the channel anymore. It was a marvel at the time. Within a few short years, connections began to go wireless, especially with the introduction of VHS (and BetaMax). With VHS, we could watch movies, concerts, documentaries and self-help videos anytime we felt like it.
Around the same time as the VHS introduction, home computers were introduced. They were quite pricey. I remember another brother-in-law (Ted) buying a work related home computer for over $4,000 ($15,000 or so in today's 'money'). The year was 1984. I would only realize decades later that Ted was one of the very first architects to use the earliest version of what would become the famous Auto-Cad program. Instead of using pencils and rulers, Ted was suddenly designing plans in hours and days instead of weeks and months, a prime example of time suddenly moving faster.
The Eighties saw the computer move into the workforce. Computers helped save programs and documents by the boatloads like never before. So if you think robots are taking over our jobs, I must inform you this has been going on since the 80's. Computers sped everything up and are now an intricate part of our lives. They are in everything from radios to cars to headsets, not to mention our cell phones.
Fast forward about ten years and the world was introduced to the internet. Thanks to telephonic infrastructure, the lines were already in place to connect us, speeding things up in a manner that could be seen as mind boggling. I myself, have been 'online' since December, 1998. The internet opened doors for me. There was a time when job seeking, I'd have to print up several copies of my resume at the local print shop (costly) and deliver them personally door to door (sweating), hoping at least one employer would call back and invite me in for an interview. With online connectivity, I could compose my resume and make endless amounts of digital copies and email them to dozens or more employers with a click of the mouse. Again, another example of time seemingly speeding up.
From the advent of the internet, social media companies created websites where we could connect with friends, family, old classmates and co-workers in an environment where we could share our thoughts, pictures, videos of our vacations, etc.. Many of us have hundreds, sometimes thousands of 'friends' so a click of the button to send your information to everyone at once, something that was never possible before, has changed the way we communicate. Imagine sending information to your hundreds of connections by snail mail. It would be too time consuming and also very costly in the form of paper, postage stamps and envelopes.
Time continues to increase in speed with all this talk of quantum computing and A.I., or Artificial Intelligence and brain implants. The first brain implant occurred in January, 2024 thanks to Elon Musk's Neuralink. According to AP News, at least three people now have Neuralink implants. At this point, can you see where we are headed?
Humans are on their way to physically connecting with the interphase and this is where Terence McKenna's interview gets really interesting. He states that we are at very near the point of achieving 'immortality' through connectivity. Imagine your brain being fed dozens or even hundreds of separate files of information at once, each of which could contain years of information. Imagine learning of the Roman Empire in incredible detail within a matter of seconds and you could retrieve that information anytime you wanted, because it's stored in your brain. Sounds very futuristic...
McKenna states that humans are the first species in 4 billion years of evolution to achieve the state we are in now. That is not small talk by any means. Never before have we been exposed to so much information at once that it seems we never have enough time to absorb it all, hence the feeling that time is moving faster and we seem to have less and less of it everyday.
My personal solution to making time appear to go slower is to disconnect from the internet on a regular basis. I'll spend a couple of hours in the garden or play music or better yet, do my exercise regimen. A walk a round the block definitely helps. So does a good vacation. Otherwise, expect everything to speed up ever faster as more information blows up in our faces. Think JFK files, the Epstein files, 9/11, Russia / Ukraine, Trump, UAV's, drones, Bitcoin, gold...
Do you feel that time is speeding up in your life? Do you feel like your wires are getting crossed? Please share your thoughts...
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