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I wasn't there - I won't politically nitpick about the innocence of the period - and to do so would also be wildly inappropriate to the very sad topic. But pos

I wasn't there - I won't politically nitpick about the innocence of the period - and to do so would also be wildly inappropriate to the very sad topic. But positively, and optimistically, I do think things are passed on, even if we don't quite understand how. From Bob Dylan's Nobel Prize acceptance speech: ''' "I saw [Buddy Holly] only but once, and that was a few days before he was gone. I had to travel a hundred miles to get to see him play, and I wasn’t disappointed. "He was powerful and electrifying and had a commanding presence. I was only six feet away. He was mesmerizing. I watched his face, his hands, the way he tapped his foot, his big black glasses, the eyes behind the glasses, the way he held his guitar, the way he stood, his neat suit. Everything about him. He looked older than twenty-two. Something about him seemed permanent, and he filled me with conviction. Then, out of the blue, the most uncanny thing happened. He looked me right straight dead in the eye, and he transmitted something. Something I didn’t know what. And it gave me the chills. I think it was a day or two after that that his plane went down." ''' Though Dylan loves to self-mythologize, if I'm going to believe anybody alive about how a baton, or muse, or torch, or access to transcendent beauty might be passed on, I'd choose to believe him. Especially given the context in which he implied this unusually (for him) sincere thing: "take this and run with it." Even reduced to something as material and measurable as 'influence', I think that's worth a great deal of optimism. We won't get another Brian Wilson. That's very, very sad. But his work remains - even if his time doesn't. Bob was of another time to Buddy. There will always be young people.

JKCalhoun 1y ago
Wild story. Yeah, it's easy to shoot holes in "innocent time" but god knows, just in terms of the complexity of what you have to know just to function in society — I am sure it is somehow measurably more complex now then it was then. So maybe I should have said a simpler time.
- gabriel666smith 1y ago
  I completely understand what you mean - and that there's certainly a psychological weight to the complexity we've added to interpersonal interaction over the last half-century. Spending extended time in cash-focused, relatively low-tech environments (the more rural parts of southern Europe, for example), the difference in psychological load is extremely noticeable. I feel a sort of basic non-comprehension in the US and UK that I don't feel in some other places. For example - something as simple as going to a grocery shop during the specific hours in which you know it is open, and saying hello to the person you know works that shift, and exchanging metal circles and numbered paper for produce: this process requires significantly less abstract thought - and abstraction of oneself from society - when compared to using a self-checkout and Apple Pay (let alone a delivery app). That tech all came in before I was 18, so I don't think it's an age thing - I think it's just weird, and complex, and unnatural for the animal brain if one's economic and social dealings don't primarily involve other animals. I don't like living in a vending machine! I didn't want to shoot holes in any way, to be clear. Innocence is a very reasonable synonym, now that I understand what you mean (without sounding too luddite / romanticising).

JKCalhoun 1y ago

Wild story. Yeah, it's easy to shoot holes in "innocent time" but god knows, just in terms of the complexity of what you have to know just to function in society — I am sure it is somehow measurably more complex now then it was then. So maybe I should have said a simpler time.

gabriel666smith 1y ago
I completely understand what you mean - and that there's certainly a psychological weight to the complexity we've added to interpersonal interaction over the last half-century. Spending extended time in cash-focused, relatively low-tech environments (the more rural parts of southern Europe, for example), the difference in psychological load is extremely noticeable. I feel a sort of basic non-comprehension in the US and UK that I don't feel in some other places. For example - something as simple as going to a grocery shop during the specific hours in which you know it is open, and saying hello to the person you know works that shift, and exchanging metal circles and numbered paper for produce: this process requires significantly less abstract thought - and abstraction of oneself from society - when compared to using a self-checkout and Apple Pay (let alone a delivery app). That tech all came in before I was 18, so I don't think it's an age thing - I think it's just weird, and complex, and unnatural for the animal brain if one's economic and social dealings don't primarily involve other animals. I don't like living in a vending machine! I didn't want to shoot holes in any way, to be clear. Innocence is a very reasonable synonym, now that I understand what you mean (without sounding too luddite / romanticising).