Boundaries In Modern Day
November 2019 Editorial
www.ink2quill.com

Many things continue to change in the modern day. Technology is still getting fancier. Last I checked, our technologies still getting more powerful and faster and the promises of even better tech just keep coming. I even heard talk of building skyscrapers taller, over a mile into the sky. These changes will have us redefining ourselves with respect to our communities, societies and the world. This brings up the question of what all the changes of the modern age change our boundaries, both perceived and real?

In the days when travel by plane was prohibitively expensive and before we had train networks as developped as they are today people lived in a general area, for the most part, and felt attached to the place they lived in. Migrating for a better life, or a better job, or to be with a significant other was much less common. Someone in the U.S. might see Asia as a place far away that they did not have the time or resources to visit. Similarly, someone in Asia might only know people on the other side of the world through TV programs or word of mouth. Such psychological, and partially physical, boundaries created a sense of identity in an individual. Think about it, flying in a plane used to be a luxury. Now it´s mostly, just a hassle and then there´s the people who misbehave on flights which causes the rest of us to lose more and more of our freedoms. Having spoken to many frequent travelers, I have to say that we long for the day where no flight would be longer than half an hour or even instantaneous. We have grown used to shorter and shorter travel times and now want the barrier of time between places to be a thing of the past.

Another important barrier that has been eroded more and more in the modern age is the face to face communication between people who share similarities like hobbies, ideas and opinions. There are streaming websites for computer games where people are in contact with each other from around the world. Now that´s very old news but my question is what influence is this having on our sense of boundaries? That is another example of an eroded boundary.

So, what will our notions of nationality be like in the coming years. If consider Europe and how easily people are willing to move around, even moving to countries where they di not know the culture or language. So, now the prosperous job markets do more to facilitate the movement of peoples in Europe and around the world than they ever could before. People are no longer intimidated at the thought of learning a new language or moving to a new place for a good job. People are on the move today. What will things be like when we move out to the stars?

John

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