The Pre-Internet World

"We are the last crop of people who know what it was like to live in a pre-internet world and now live in a fully connected world.  Our childhood was marked by periods of boredom where we had to go out of our way to figure out creative ways to entertain ourselves.  The amount of energy you had to exude with your imagination to figure out how to spend time was extraordinary. 

Fast forward to the 12 year old now, or the 10 year old or the 8 year old, they have to exert even more energy to not be distracted, to find boredom, to find stillness.  

 

It cannot be overstated how profound a change that is.  And I'm not sure that we really appreciate the extent of which that's going to change the course of humanity, because what is that person going to look like in 20 or 30 years when they're an adult?  It's going to be a very different type of being.  

 

I think now more than ever we're in a crisis of presence in that we never have to be by ourselves ever again.  You have to go out of your way to find a moment of stillness.

  

Blaise Pascal once said, 'All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone'."

- Rich Roll