Dinosaur birds. Now what?
Time after time, paradigm shift after paradigm shift, no matter how things change, we still tend to be us.
A revolution is successful when people no longer think about it. Not just military revolutions, but revolutions overall.
Revolutions succeed when whatever they accomplished becomes so normal and so accepted that people forget they ever happened and go about their business.
How did antibiotics change the way we think about ourselves? What about mass production?
What about discovering how to make fire?
When someone cuts us off on the freeway, very few of us will say, “Well, back before Edward Jenner, we had a bunch of people dying from smallpox, and now that terrible disease is eradicated—so we should all be super happy and nice to each other!”
No, it’s still someone being an idiot, and idiots are idiots.
But that doesn’t mean that eradicating smallpox was anything less than revolutionary.
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about successful revolutions. Maybe, as I get older, I want to feel that my time on this earth has been significant. Or, perhaps in the midst of this pandemic and climate change and people banning books and general doomscrolling, it’s nice to be reminded that we’ve been doing some things right.
Whatever the case, when I made my instant ramen noodles this morning, it made me smile to remember that at one time, a ramen noodle that could go from zero to ready-to-eat in a couple of minutes was unheard of. That Momofuku Ando spent decades developing the product that gives a quick pick-up to my day.
Momofuku Ando. Legend.*
Instant ramen is a small and quiet revolution, but so is sending this article out, in this newsletter, to be published to readers around the world. The whole magic of Internet publication aside, I remember a time when air mail took days, and long-distance phone calls—do we even consider the cost of long-distance phone call anymore?
If I want to chat with a friend in Israel—I just…do? We can even video conference.
Wow!
As I teach and write and care for my parents and figure out my income taxes and plan for my retirement and get my car a smog check and visit the optometrist and so on and so on, it is so refreshing to go, “Wow!”
I think that, just a few decades ago, scientists insisted that no human had, or would ever, see a living dinosaur. That they were long, long dead, and barring some sort of breakthrough, we would never know why.
Now, we have a good idea why many of the dinosaurs died out, and even where the meteor struck. Furthermore, we know that some dinosaurs survived as birds.
Birds are dinosaurs.
Yes, I know you know this already.
But, wow.
I still can’t get over drones. Powered flight with batteries. Quiet, controllable—that you can fly around with precision and control. You can even shoot video as it flits about from high above the trees.
How does this even happen? Yes, yes, neodymium magnets, but how does this even happen?
Less than a hundred years ago, we were still trying to figure out why South America seemed to jigsaw with Africa. It was literally only a hundred years ago that consensus emerged that there were other galaxies in the universe.
And a drug like Viagra? Seriously. How many wars could have been avoided? How many rhinos would have been saved? Think of how much bank could you make going back in time selling Viagra to limp-membered kings!
Most special to me are those revolutions that happened when I was alive. Hair serum, containing liquid silicone, first appeared in the 80s and 90s. I clearly remember the first time that I used it—so little product, so much shine!
Instant game changer! As were ceramic straightening irons. Nail gel…
Early hair tongs. Most likely inspired by the Spanish Inquistion.**
All were revolutions that were so successful that I use them regularly. And even though my life was directly changed, I still need to pause to recall what life was like without them.
Remember cathode ray tubes? Computer displays used to eat up most of one’s desk space. Televisions were straight-up furniture, housed room-dominating cabinets.
Nowadays we can hang a screen on the wall. Stick a laptop in a handbag. Some smart phone displays can even be folded like a postcard.
Smart phones.
Wow. You can chat with anyone in the world. And you have a calculator, and an amazing flashlight.
Oh, and by the way, you have access to all human knowledge in the palm of your hand.
In some ways, worrying about who will host “Jeopardy!” seems silly when one has all of human knowledge in the palm of one’s hand.
Except that’s exactly how true revolutions work—we have them, celebrate for a while, then go on with our business. “Taking it to the next level” means exactly that. You get there and it will be just as level as before.
Recently, I rewatched “The Chase,” a Star Trek: Next Generation episode where members of various humanoid species—Humans, Klingons, Cardassians, Romulans—wish to solve a code of unimaginable antiquity.
The episode plays out like an interstellar scavenger hunt, complete with the usual Star Trek interspecies drama. Eventually, they solve the puzzle—and their prize is a message that they are all descendants of a single lonely progenitor species.
Every humanoid race in the galaxy is the product of the same primal question, the same hope, the same dream.
Of course, immediately afterward, there’s an argument, and the episode ends with the Romulan commander sending an open-ended message to Captain Picard about hanging out someday.
And it’s then over and it’s time for the next episode.
I don’t think that this is frustrating; in fact, I think it’s the opposite. Yes, it would be amazing to see this message of common origin changing the galaxy, new personalities supplanting old, harmony reigning supreme—everyone hugging each other and “Qapla's” all around.
For one episode. Maybe two, max.
Because seriously—perky Romulans? Gross.
There’s something very comforting in how nonchalantly we handle revolutions. Time after time, paradigm shift after paradigm shift, no matter how things change, we still tend to be us.
The winds of change do not erase us. The neighbors move next door and speak a different language. Your daughter suddenly says he’s a boy. The cosmos turns inside out and suddenly the earth orbits the sun.
And yet, we are who we are. McDonald’s brings out Monopoly again, and you’re kind of happy, but you really want them to bring back the McRib.
Even if we’re healthier, wiser, with much shinier hair. Even with dental implants and gravitational waves and the cosmic microwave background.
Even with milk cartons coming with a screw cap and interspecies heart transplants. Even having Simu Liu star in a Marvel movie.
Even placing a Black woman on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Tomorrow, life will go on. Just as it always does.
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Next Week: When Fair is Foul and Foul is Fair: Athletes, Competition, and Enjoying the Game Anyway.
Cover: LEONELLO CALVETTI/ Collection: Science Photo Library/ Getty Images
* KAZUHIRO NOGI / Collection: AFP / Getty Images
** Mariegriffiths, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2003623