October 24, 2024

There are times when I feel right up there with the times. I feel like I’m navigating the 21st century with a fair amount of success and while the world feels chaotic, it feels manageable.

There are other times when I feel my solid Gen-X roots, and subsequently lose myself in a more analog world. While there are many things that were not enjoyable about the 20th century for a gay man like me, I still have fond memories of life “back then”. I usually get feedback when I talk about these things, but I still maintain society seemed a little saner, the news was less chaotic, and people seemed to be looking out for each other, just a little bit. I know about the racism and the homophobia and the sexism and all that, but on the whole, the world around me, in my little bubble, felt comfortable and easier to navigate.

Every once in a while I’ll watch old marketing video from the 1950s and note how these industrious presentations made everyone seem so, well, industrious. The “Tools of Telephony” film from Western Electric, released in 1956, is one such video.

I don’t know this man. He appears for a maximum of two seconds as the narrator goes through a myriad of shots of people working hard at Western Electric. This man caught my eye the very first time I saw this marketing film. If I could still grow hair on my head I’d probably go for something like that, though it’d probably be too gray this point and I’d then be all about the vanity and keep it less greased. I really enjoy his glasses and mustache, and I really like the design of the industrial equipment he’s working on. It’s practical, it does what it’s suppose to do without fail (something Western Electric and The Bell System in general was famous for), and it’s been manufactured in the United States. Analog rocked, and as a Gen-Xer I can easily remember when the world was much more analog.

Maybe we need more analog and less digital in the world.

On the other hand, I wouldn’t have ever seen this video if it wasn’t for the digital age, and someone digitizing this video to share on YouTube. So there’s that. It’s a shame I had to wade through a bunch of other videos related to absolutely nothing I was looking for in order to land on this video in the first place.

So complicated.

I guess I want less complication in life. As I get older one would think that life would get easier, but not really. I think the 21st century is just complicated in general.

You know what would really make me happy? Not hearing about a U.S. election for about 3 1/2 years. The November election has been weighing on my mind a lot and I just want to get beyond it. I want to know the outcome, pray to (whatever) that people aren’t as ridiculously stupid as we’re led to believe, and that we’ll be moving forward under the first female president come the end of January.

That is not a complicated decision to make it all.