The Great Normalizer

Something funny happened to the way I think about world changes

Photo by Scott Szarapka on Unsplash

I read somewhere that, every twenty years or so, Jupiter and Saturn meet at the same point in their journey around the sun -- they become indistinguishable, one point in space. Astrologers call this conjunction The Great Chronocrator, an event that marks the start of a new cycle for us on Earth, like the end of a generation and the beginning of a new one. 

And, apparently, it’s a big deal. Last time this happened, on December 21st 2020, it was even a bigger deal, as it fell on the day of the Solstice. That’s supposed to be something extraordinary, a once-in-many-lifetimes type of thing.

I’m no astrology expert, not even an enthusiast. I’d say I belong to the it-might-as-well-be-bullshit-but-you-never-know camp. So, when I came across this Great Chronocrator thing I sort of skimmed through it with a lazy eye. But then something told me to go back and reread it.

And I thought that if you measure the passage of time in twenty-year blocks, and you look at science and technology, you can clearly see that the world is changing at an exponential rate -- the amount of things that changed in the 2000-2020 block, for example, is probably orders of magnitude greater than all changes that happened in history up to the year 2000. But if, on the other hand, you look at areas such as infrastructure, energy, or transportation, the rate of change in the last twenty-year block is probably barely positive. 

So, I’m thinking, maybe this last Great Chronocrator (that’s so special because it fell on the day of the Solstice) just started an awesome new cycle where things are going to change exponentially in non-science, non-tech areas as well. Will it be an awesome new cycle for my family and myself? Wait, what about my dogs and my cat? Will I be able to buy a Sunburst 1958 Gibson Les Paul Standard? Will the Rolling Stones endure twenty more years of outstanding live performances? Will they find a way to resuscitate the dead? Will Italy win another World Cup?     

As all these existential questions were popping up in my head, however, I remembered that I always feel awkward talking about progress and how fast the world changes. In fact, I hate it. I hate getting into discussions about how technology has made our lives more comfortable, convenient and efficient, or how much more wealth has been created in the last decades, or how poverty has been almost eliminated. 

I hate it because they generate a false sense of accomplishment in a world where the big problems are still there -- as in, it’s so cool that I can get same day delivery from Amazon, or feel more cyber-secure, or that some people talk about billions like they talked about ten-dollar bills, yet inequality is as pronounced and out-of-control as ever, homeless people still sleep on sidewalks, we still wage wars, and get cancer. Plus -- as J. Storrs Hall titled his excellent book -- where is my flying car? Yes, science and technology have leaped ahead like never before, but when I got out of school in the nineties, frankly, I had higher expectations. 

So, humanity stinks. But, as disturbing as that sounds, this is not the main reason I hate talking about progress. I hate it because I always have this feeling that I’m not keeping up, that I’m in a perennial catch-up mode.      

And this is frustrating -- I suck at soaking into new things, at deciding when is the time to go all in and try to understand what’s going on. I’m terrible at getting trends before they become trends. And so I feel constantly behind the curve. Bitcoin? Yeah, sure, I’d heard of it a decade ago, but I dismissed it as something that couldn’t possibly be more interesting than the shit I was involved in back then. And time goes by and you see that this Bitcoin thing gets bigger and bigger, and everyone around you starts talking about it, and it becomes top of mind for many, and you just sit there, watching. Damn. And then, eventually, the epiphany arrives. But it’s too late. Or maybe it’s not too late, but you feel like millions of others realizing the same thing at the same time, once it’s totally visible, right before your eyes. So you try to catch-up, but the world doesn’t stop, and it feels like Achilles running after the tortoise (or the other way around). 

The weird thing is that I don’t get frustrated because I’m unable to see the future. Come on, this is normal -- even people with a crystal ball struggle with that. I get frustrated because, despite reading tons, paying attention, thinking, writing, and talking to smart people, I always feel behind, gasping for more, like I’m missing something and continuously playing catch-up. Like the world is cruising at this speed and I’m cruising at this other, much lower, speed. 

I don’t know what to call this condition. It feels like I have a virus that’s hard to fight, its main symptom being that I always want to cover the whole surface, as if leaving something out made me a lesser person. Like when I first got cable tv and found out there were hundreds of channels to watch, and I wanted to watch them all. Or when it was time to choose electives in college, and I wanted them all. Something half-way between FOMO and insanity.

And so, stumbling upon this Great Chronocrator thing -- as much as Astrology and I are poles apart -- stirred all these thoughts that hadn’t crossed my mind for some time. Surprisingly, though, it made me realize that looking at how the world changes in twenty-year blocks, at the end of the day, helps me put things in perspective. And it makes me feel less behind, less out of place, less inadequate in what until yesterday I thought of as “my race against the world”. 

There’s no race. It’s all normal.

I guess the Universe has its own ways of normalizing our views of progress and the role we play in it. Two planets meet every twenty years to remind us to stop, reflect on how our lives have changed, and start a new chapter. To remind us that we’ve done a lot, and that there’s still a lot to be done. To reassure us that awareness is more important than velocity and that it’s ok to be behind and catch up.   

Maybe the Great Chronocrator is really a Great Normalizer -- a gift from the Universe that made me understand that yes, the world changes fast, but I do too. 

At my own pace.

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