10/08/2026
When Remarkable Becomes Ordinary
- A Thoughtful Thought from Albert Barnwright
"I caught myself getting irritated the other day because something took too long to load on my phone.
Not terribly long. Just long enough for me to notice it.
That wouldāve been a pretty strange complaint when I was young.
Back then, if you wanted to know something, you usually had to ask somebody, look it up, or wait until you got where the information was. If you wanted to talk to somebody far away, you thought about the cost of the call. If you ordered something, you sure didnāt expect it to show up on the porch the next afternoon.
Now I can carry more information in my pocket than I couldāve found in a whole room full of books, and I can reach somebody hundreds of miles away without giving it much thought.
I suppose thatās what struck me most. I wasnāt amazed that I could pull nearly anything I wanted out of a little box in my hand. I was annoyed that it made me wait.
We get used to good things mighty fast. The remarkable becomes ordinary, and ordinary doesnāt take long to become expected.
I donāt think the answer is wishing for the old days. Iām pretty fond of air conditioning, power steering, and not having to unfold a road map across the steering wheel.
But every now and then, it might do us some good to remember that a lot of what feels ordinary today wouldāve looked downright remarkable not all that long ago.
I reckon my phone can take five seconds."
Albert Barnwright, Slow Loader, Fast Learner
