Thoughts on the iPad

Now there is the iPad. I just realized, in the next ten years, I'm going to look at the size of the computers we have now in the same way that I look at the size of cell phones in the early 2000's. It will be gradual, and then, shocking. Kind of like getting fat. Or getting old. I guess they are the same phenomenon, really, the process of things around you changing faster than you are. It's the key to staying young: never getting stuck, keep up with the pace of the world. But the desire for youth is pulled by the desire to do something, to become someone. That seems to be the pressure these days, to make a decision, settle, dig in my heels and become something. Sometimes, I worry that if you spend too long choosing, you'll never become anything. That there will be a point when it will be too late.

The idea that I will run out of time doesn't bother me too much, because I know I'm very young. But even at my young age, things like the iPad, or I Love The 00's, or the fact that 1997 was 13 years ago, begin to awaken this fear. This is because I do believe there comes a time when you have spent so long not deciding what you are, you become someone that couldn't decide, and that's a static person as well, a commitment in itself. I'm realizing that sometimes when you make commitments, be they degrees, relationships, locations, you can still sustain flexibility and contribute to your growth. That even when you gain definitions you still have room for new contours. Personal growth is a way to maintain youth, because the feelings it gives you are identical to the way everyone feels as a child: That sense that the world was constantly filled with delights and surprises, or, in other words, the feeling that you could become someone new. But is not always fertilized by a constant wandering. Instead, one grows both by accepting commitments and living up to definitions and keeping an eye for continued positive change.