OCTOBER 4, TUESDAY

NOT FLAT ANY MORE

Not long ago the world was flat. We knew it was round because we were taught that in school, but we thought it as being flat. And when we went on a trip, as I have just done, we thought of ourselves as going in a straight line out to the end of the world.

When I walked on the beach yesterday and looked out toward Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, of course it was too far away to see, but when I looked toward it I looked straight out. I didn’t look at a 45 degree angle through the sand and below the sea floor to where Myrtle Beach actually was, as it would be if the world was round, I looked straight out, I didn’t feel Myrtle beach was blocked by the earth, it was simply too far away to see. No wonder, not long ago, sailors were afraid of sailing off the edge of the world and dropping into oblivion.

This was still true for me when I started taking students to India in 1972. We took the train to New York and then flew across the ocean and over land until we got to India. Once there, because we had no access to phones, I would encourage students to write right away to let their parents know they were all right. Then, when the parents got the letter in a couple of weeks, they would write back and a month after we arrived the students would hear from their parents. We were far, far away. The United States was a distant place.

But this changed slowly over time. The first thing that changed was that it became possible to send pretty instant FAX messages and then in the late 90’s we could contact home through instant email. But it was only with the ability to make inexpensive phone calls from certain phone booths in India that we fully realized that the world was round and that the sun shone in different places at different times. If you called in the morning you would wake up your parents in the middle of the night. If your parents called you in the evening they would wake you in the middle of the night. It was a clear sign that the world was round. And then came cell phones, which were at first quite expensive, but which now over Facetime or What’s App are free. All of a sudden we are in instant contact and can even see each other’s facial expressions. With improved cellular service we can even take our family for a walk down the street which I have done a couple of times here in Essaouira.

We are in instant contact in a round world. This is true in many more ways. Not only is the world round, it has become much much smaller.

When I first went to India I looked forward to the weekly international edition of Time Magazine or Newsweek. Once a week we could read the news and find out what was happening in the world and particularly at home. But now, of course, whenever anything happens I get an instant notification on my iPhone. And the newspapers and magazines have an instant on line presence in addition to their weekly print edition. The print edition no longer conveys the news, except about little known events which aren’t mentioned in the daily notifications, but mostly magazines and even newspapers are more about commentary on the the news, opinion pieces, than the news itself which has already come to us instantly. We are instantly everywhere and hear more commentary than news.

All of this happened gradually but it is hard to overstate how huge this change has been. The news comes in short bites and the opinion pieces, which is all that Fox News and MSNBC are now, endless commentary, take most of media time.

Not only is the world round, but we are instantly there, in Ukraine battles and Indonesian stampedes and Florida hurricanes as they are happening. Everything is next door.

When I was a boy a trip to India from Seattle took six weeks, now it takes a day. When I was a boy places like Marrakech and Casablanca were distant and exotic, now Essaouira is next door and I sit by Susie and talk to her on Facetime twice a day, I am as close to her as I was in Asheville and Morocco is exotic no more.

The world has turned upside down in my life time. No wonder people are nostalgic for the old days and want to go back.