KEY TO TOMORROW - TECHNO LUST  

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Recently, in Bellingham, Washington I was speaking to some young sound, video, graphic and animation artists. They pointed out that as they discover new technologies and what they can do with them, they are learning what these developments are doing for them. They are creating new careers using new hardware and software and moving themselves upscale, economically, culturally and socially.

What gave them this opportunity? Techno-lust. With all the fear of AIDS among the young, it is though a lot of youthful sexual energy is being diverted to creativity.

There is developing, around the western world, a small coterie of children, students, adults and even seniors, who have been attracted to modern technology and are learning how to play, amuse themselves, work, find new incentives and new sources of revenue through the new tools of the information age. Most don't even recognize these new toys as tools. Unlike the pick, shovel, rake, hammer or screwdriver that were the traditional tools of the mechanical age, these new tools do not carry the inference of work. They are, like all good learning devices, but toys that give pleasure. Hence, by playing, they learn, become masters of the toys, and benefit greatly by their use. In an age that demands computer proficiency, they have a self-made entree to success.

The "toy" can be a home VCR. Coupled with a TV and/or a satellite dish and maybe even a camcorder and more increasingly with a computer, they learn how to manipulate pictures just like they have learned how to mix numbers. First they made spread sheets from numbers; then mixed letters to make words, then words to make stories. Now they know how to mix pictures taken from TV into their own "movies" via what is known as desktop video. One cannot go through this process without developing pattern recognition. Very quickly they are more than they were before. When that occurs they become more active intellectually. That invariable leads to an upscale in thought, attitude and earning ability.

What this can mean on a national scale is progress. Just as almost every early immigrant into North America had to learn how to farm, how to understand the seasons, the weather, and the very soil itself, they are learning how to "harvest" the crops of the new age. The direction it all takes, both on each individuals trail of progress, the families or the nations is now unknown. But, it can not but be but a tremendous boost to those that learn the new "trade", their families and their future.

Once such "students" reach one level of proficiency, they develop strong urges to go on. As technologies converge and "marry" one another it creates new screens to conquer and seductively offers more if they can just solve and acquire insight into the next level. It is as though fate had designed such toys to appear at such a place in time and space. What it will lead to, just like any of the significant discoveries of the past is, of course, right now, unknown. But happen it will.

And, it will be of a significance of equal import as the alphabet, reading and writing, the sail, navigation equipment, the typewriter, the telegraph, the phone and the radio.

Don't you want to share in such adventure?

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