New stuff is neat... gimme gimme gimme...

I like new things.  There I said it.  I love new science, new technologies, new media, new games, new friends, new enemies, new favorite sandwich.  Yet I hate change... go figure.

Mostly though I like the idea of us as a species learning new things.  The fact that some of us as humans are able to peer deeper into the mysteries of the physical universe and find proof of the Higgs Boson, or dark matter, or able to give sight back to the blind, take the idea of memory away from the realm of then metaphysic to the realm of them empiricist.  We as a species are damned impressive.  Humanity defintly has its moments of glory.

I am an odd duck.  Ok you knew that but still let me explain.  I am pessimistic about our immediate future most of the time.  I feel the systems we have built for ourselves have become our cages more often than not.  We have the inability to take the long view, and that might be an evolutionary issue.  But here's the odd part, I am optimistic for our long term as a species.

Granted, to steal a classic phrase, we stand on the shoulders of giants.  The collective knowledge, cultural heritage, and technology are the products of a very special few amongst the very many average rest of us.  Einstein, Newton, Voltaire, Plato, Sun Tzu, Lao Tse, and a handful of others are the diamonds in the rough of humanity.  We the masses benefit from their genius, while being unable to truly join them in their understanding.  Newton was so far beyond, he had to create a new level of mathematics just to described the new science he laid out in physics.  I will never approach that level of discovery.

But we don't stop, the best of us keep going, pressing out to the borders of our collective knowledge, our collective cultures, our technologies.  The next wave builds upon the collected work of all the previous generations.  Well ok, the works that survived.  But still, that's alot.  This is our light in the darkness, to blatantly steal from Carl Sagan.  Our reason, our adaptation to new ideas, and our drive to understand.  Our light only gets brighter.  Just as the days get longer, as we pass the solstice of darkest nights, so to does our collected us shine stronger and brighter.

I am a pretty bad pessimist.  I have hope in us all.  I blame the Quakers.... but that's another rant for another day.