David Bowie’s latest single “Where Are We Now?” is a haunting introspective song sure to evoke a palpable emotional response from listeners around the world. At least that’s what happened to me.
Too often in life we just go through the motions falling deep into a state of complacency. As a younger man I’d ride the New York City subway trains at various times during the day each week. I couldn’t help notice the expressions of the men and women above the age of 40. Some were lost in deep thought. Others seemed lifeless, bearing a stoic countenance as if the bright flame of their dreams had been snuffed out long ago. I wondered if that would be my fate. Could the struggles of life eclipse my optimism.
As the years passed the world became a smaller, more volatile place. There now exists a nearly symbiotic relationship with technology even though by definition, machines are not alive. The information age which promised to connect us all has in fact distanced us from real life social interactions. Even those of us with young children have felt the impact with the all too pervasive Tablets now becoming a fixture in our lives.
The need to take a moment, maybe several moments to take stock of where we are now seems more relevant than ever. As in a lyric from another popular David Bowie song, “Time can change me, but I can’t change time,” our lives constantly change as time passes despite our best efforts to control time.
Have you ever felt as if the span of a decade is more compressed? I think it’s because so many of us have adopted and accepted the rapid fire pace style of living that works in tandem with the technological world of predetermined obsolescence. Stay still and you are old news. Blink and you might get left behind. Nonetheless, living this way is still a choice not a necessity.
So how are you taking moments for yourself? How do we break the cycle of running in place? Where are we now?
David Bowie: Where Are We Now
