I started Journalism school in 2008, just weeks before the housing bubble burst and the Great Recession began. In a matter of a few days, everything Iād been taught throughout my whole life about going to college to get a degree and a well-paying job at a newspaper and a house in the suburbs became a dream of the past. The newspapers and magazines and TV stations Iād long imagined having a byline in began shuttering their presses in droves. Suddenly, this new thing called ābloggingā was becoming the trusted source of news and discourse. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram became the main method of communication for people my age. Streaming online was slowly replacing watching your local television station. Seemingly overnight, the entire journalism industry (and many others) was turned upside down.
In my short lifetime, I have seen lots of things that we never thought we could live without basically become obsolete. My family had pagers and my house had a landline all the way up until high school. Within a year, we were exclusively using cell phones. My house had bulky entertainment centers that held fat-backed TV sets and VHSes and then DVDs and then BlueRays. Now, those things hardly exist. I donāt remember the last time I saw a commercial on TV, all my streaming services are ad-free. And when was the last time you got in your car and turned on the radio? My car automatically connects to my phone.
So many things have changed so quickly. And I feel change is in the air again. Not just in terms of the autumnal weather and the changing seasons. Thereās a shift happening in everything we do from how we communicate, to how we commute, to how we work, to how we exist. And even these changes arenāt permanent (RIP Bitcoin). Everything inevitably evolves.
As time and technology evolve, as the world turns and I grow up and grow old, I hope that Iāll always be myself.
When I thought about this prompt, something that I hoped never changed, and tried to think about things that I wanted to stay the same, I realized that was a futile task. As I walked down memory lane and searched my life for something that I hoped would last forever, I realized that nothing never changes. My nieces and nephew will grow up and get their own interests. People I love will move or move on (or I might). Books and TV shows I like might get canceled (or their creators will be canceled). Buildings will get built up and torn down.Ā Friendships will form and fall apart. Loved ones will pass away. And as the world is changing around me, Iām changing within it. My body and my interests and my abilities are all changing all the time.
Octavia Butler once wrote: āChange is the one unavoidable, irresistible, ongoing reality of the universeā¦ The only lasting truth is change.ā Everything will eventually evolve and itās only bound to happen more quickly and more drastically as our technology continues to advance. Weāre basically living in the age that The Twilight Zone could only imagine, and I canāt imagine what will come next.Ā
It may not be worth it to hope that anything never changes. I guess I hope that Iāll always be excited and inspired by whatās new. Change can be scary, I hope that Iāll always be able to make the best of it and I hope that I never lose my sense of wonder, resilience, and imagination. And I hope that even as time and technology evolve, even as the world turns and I grow up and grow old, that Iāll always be myself.
This entry was written for WEEK 1 of the Finding the Right Words October Challenge under the theme of CHANGE. Follow along using the graphic above and write about whatever comes to mind with the corresponding prompt. Share with me using the tag #FTRW or email me at jdoggett9 [at] gmail.Ā
Thereās no wrong way to journal. You just gotta find the right words. Happy Writing!