On the 13th of May in the year of someone's God 1966 the world was introduced to one Richard Danielli; by calculation that May the 13th was a Friday. At the time of this writing, yesterday was once again a Friday the 13th of May and Mr. Danielli celebrated his birthday with friends while sitting upon a patio, received well wishes from family and friends and a lottery ticket from a neighbor. The handling of the lottery ticket is still a question that needs to be addressed...
Is being 56 years of age old enough to become a grumpy old man is the question that this article will be addressing through examples. The premiss is to compare the understood historical time of Mr. Danielli's infancy, adolescence, the bravado of youth and adulthood.
The reader is asked to keep in mind the influence that America has on the world.
Infancy - 1 year old:
The average home prices in Toronto in 1967 were $24,000. The war in Vietnam was still active at this time shortly after the Korean conflict halted hostilities. People were picking flowers to put in their hair and rifle barrels. Face paint was liberally applied on faces across America to symbolize peace and unity for it was the 'Summer of Love' after all. Of course Canada had to revert back to a peace time economy after the Korean conflict and the USA had to shift away from their embarrassment in Vietnam.
Cars were mostly small, though pretty good at gas guzzling due to inefficiencies. Many people had small gardens to reap the rewards of fresh food be it the flavour or a slightly lower grocery bill; and people had the time to do the gardening. Houses were also small and most people could do their own repairs and they owned the tools and knowledge with effect. The experts were only called in for fresh construction projects and in a moment of dire need where the tool or knowledge was not available.
Adolescence - ~13 years old:
The 70s in Toronto saw the average home price rise 141% from $29,429 in 1970 to $70,830 in 1979. 1969 heralded the era of the end of space race when Neil Armstrong placed his foot on the Moon and was able to come home to the Earth after the fact. There was at this time a shift away from war and a move towards hope and accomplishment.
Cars got bigger as did the gas guzzling. Opulence escalated as lower level cars started to more resemble higher end motor cars by any means required. Some cars actually used wood while others adopted plastic to resemble wood. There was also an inrush of foreign manufacturers in North America coupled with an expansion of domestic brands. Obviously there was prosperity in both Canada and the USA for as the saying goes people vote with their feet.
The Internet took its first baby step around this time when Universities, Governments and big business became adjoined at 9600-8-N-1 or even slower. Dial-up was the only option on the WAN side of things, and on the LAN side of things COAX cable was just starting to take hold. Computers were centralized and people mostly used a remote terminals or a terminal emulator.
The bravado of youth - ~19 Years old:
Despite seeing some heart stopping interest rates, home prices in the 1980s increased by 260% from $76,000 in 1980 to $274,000 in 1989. The comfort settled in and so another round of rebellion got kicked in to gear as the mid to late 70s lead to the era of Punk and other harsh fragmentation of society. The improvements in the speed of data transference permitted ideas and images to be spread at a faster rate than ever before. Once people had a choice outside of their community they gained confidence due to online-numbers as their social community grew outside of the community they live in.
Around this time cars got smaller once again and so did the consumption of gas as by now cars became more efficient though the cars also became more complicated. More independence was taken away from the owner; this was not a bad thing overall seeing as the car became more complicated and the owners were not as well educated as they could be to maintain the car, which stepped out of cadence, the owner or the car this will be left to the reader to determine.
Around this time began the reintroduction of identity politics and public shame in the eye and ears of Mr. Danielli. The reader is asked to remember that this diatribe is based on the memories of Mr. Danielli during an internal interview. Society and the people there in, were being asked if not demanded of to weigh the balance based on a single topic in order to determine the goodness or the badness of an individual. It was still common place that a company's name held the name of the creator of that company.
It should be noted by the reader that in 1989 the fall of the Berlin Wall happened.
Adulthood- 56 years old:
At the time of this writing the average home selling prices in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) area increased 15% year-over-year to $1,254,400 while decreasing 3.5% month-over-month for April 2022. The 30 year old position of comfort has come and gone by this time due to a number of reasons. At the time of this writing, student dept has climbed to the roof and the ability to buy a house dropped to the floor. There seems to be a certain ire in the air as hope goes out the window as this usually creates social change.
The small cars of the 60s and early 70s returned with upgrades to electronics and emissions management in the form of the Fiat 500, the Mini and the Volkswagen Beatle. Other cars, mainly those built in Northern America have been homogenized into a non-distinctive shape between fabricators. Electric cars have by now been introduced, as the savior of the environment, though there is little to no regard for the source of the power required to charge that battery made from rare earth minerals; such as the generation of electricity be it from oil, natural gas or nuclear. The reader should also be reminded that more and more of the each and every car contains more plastic and that the source of plastic is oil.
The public Internet for the most part has moved to speeds that were only dreamed of by the science fiction writers of the 1960s and 1970s, which were the earliest parts of Mr. Danielli's life. Some of these Sci-Fi writers could see the inbound problems of a communication cloud so large and blew the trumpets of warning, Robert A. Heinlein and Philip K. Dick come fist in line for the mind of this author.
Identity politics and public shaming is now going full throttle to the point where the term 'cancel culture' has been coined. The culture has taken on a sizable shift from help thy neighbor towards don't know thy neighbor. The social pearl clutching has now accompanied the dive to the bottom of society. The North American societal 'Overton window' is once again shifting; the reins are now being held tight and are pulled upon hard; for as the saying goes the pendulum always swings because that is just what humans do from time to time.
Society has seemingly lost any path of purpose as the societal load has been shifted away from building a culture to creating public shame. For somehow now people no longer feel comfortable putting forth a definite definition of what a woman or a man is. This has caused much concern for Mr. Richard Danielli as social leadership continues to moves further and further beyond arms length.
One of the warnings Machiavelli gives to both the Good Prince and the citizenry was that the best means towards a successful society is that the Good Prince remains present to their subjects.
The sentence in the lines above was made evident to Mr. Richard Danielli back in the age of adolescence by his father and mother, and with high confidence Mr. Danielli asserts that his parents never read the book. Of course upon occasion Mr. Richard Danielli was left on his own or in the company of his brother. As the age of the then children climbed the alone time increased as their parents imposed more responsibility upon the then children; simple question, where is the self responsibility being assigned today that hasn't already been reassigned to the government?
(EDIT-5/18/2022) It has also been noted recently that the musical injections are returning to the pre-grunge musical era which was somewhat a return to the 1950s North American music scene; people wore suits and dresses on stage and off. The people of North America presented themselves well to their neighbors. Additionally the lyrics of many songs were relationship building and societal building; all of that changes by the year 2000.
Please remember that The Berlin Wall was built to keep people within a boarder.
In Conclusion:
It should be obvious to the reader that every subsection of this article has a greater number of paragraphs then those that proceeds it. This is an obvious progression for Mr. Richard Danielli as he has moved through life's circle his awareness and he has grown and more of the world has been thrust upon him via the expansion of the public Internet. It is still up for debate if this awareness is for the better or for the worse personally.
The teeter-totter of life introduces one to many characters and Mr. Danielli has not been bereft of that experience. In the last few years Mr. Danielli has taken note that a number of caricatures have also joined the public discourse; this is probably the normal in many societies throughout the ages and it simply took Mr. Richard Danielli years to see the difference.
There are a number of characters that history will just not let go of, well at least for now, and you the reader should take note as to the why. Aristotle is notable as is both Plato and Socrates for they launched some of the first studies in thinking about thinking. Obviously they were not the first though it also has to be recognized that Pythagoras and Archimedes of Syracuse provided the basics of mathematics and physics. Amadeus Mozart, Da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Caravaggio brought forth art that so few of you can even dream of touching. Next there are the writers and the orators such as Shakespeare, Poe, Dave Allen, and Professor Peterson, for they too brought contemplation and understanding to light via words. While there are so many more to be named, there is an intended limited space for this writing.
Upon reflection, Mr. Richard Danielli recalls with affection the times of infancy, adolescence and even bravado; though the last item was quite turbulent as it should be. In considering the current society is there still a sense of bravado in young men? Is there still a request for bravado in young women; because now that men and women are more equal to men then ever before, should any man give a shit for any woman who claims such.
We all make choices that have consequence...
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