The older I get, the better I was.
A legend in his own mind.
Five miles to school, uphill both
ways.
Memory is selective. From time to time,
story to story, we remember the parts that support our chosen
message.
Nuvo
quo is when we selectively improve what we remember of the old
status quo.
Nuvo quo can keep you warm in the glow
of past accomplishments,
but shouldn’t be used to hold off the future.
I like libraries, places of inventory
and quiet. Reference librarians were always faking. They projected a
deep knowledge of everything, By second year of high school, I was
ahead of them in many areas. I figured I should always ask first,
just in case, and then dive into the research. That’s where I
learned that with any technology, you have to navigate for your own
best results.
For all practical purposes, Google has
obliterated the need for reference librarians, except the ones who
know something important and don’t choose to write it down. A
protective perversion of knowledge. Google has won.
I attended Wikimania 2012, the global
convention of Wikipedians this summer. Wikipedia has won as the
primary source of knowledge research except among the academicians
who have already been largely replaced by Wikipedia. They are
fighting a valiant rearguard action and wasting everyone else’s
time.
Shrieking (shrinking?) mass media is
trumpeting that new medicine will not be like old medicine. Well, no
kidding and thank goodness. New technologies might free us from
ignorant, overworked physicians, well meaning but perpetually fogged
technicians, oversized medical facilities that can never deliver cost
effective healthcare and maximize unforeseen problems to threaten
patients on a terrifying scale.
Based on previous experience, we can
predict the first versions of new technology won’t necessarily
outperform existing, and also predict that in an unregulated
marketplace, new technologies will cost less, give better results,
and be available to many more users in a short period of time.
We need the new technologies, and with
any technology, we have to navigate for our own best results.
Oh Lord, if there’s gonna be a
change, let it begin with some other guy!
Nuvo quo. Interesting change. When our doctor invited my husband to sit with him while he looked up something, his opinion rose in my husband's view while he recognized that the doctor couldn't do that with most patients without losing all credibility. A lesson in maurity in our young adulthood. I now routinely include a link to clinical guidelines in my cancer survivor stories so that newly-stricken can at least see what the doctor is likely to recommend. Good post.
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