Can there ever be equality if there is choice?

I was watching an Elon Musk video- always entertaining. Hearing about his visions (we may call them visions, he calls them WIP- The Hyperloop: coming to a city near you?) I can join dots and 'see' the future. One thing he said made me pause the video: "Of course; these will come in basic, advanced and premium models." Or words thereabouts. He was talking of choice as 'affordability'. It was supposed to be a great selling point, this: The fact, no matter your income- you too, could afford a model.

I thought to myself: "Hang in! The minute you succumb and purchase something within any given choice group... are you not in effect saying: I acknowledge there are others above me and below me financially and socially? Therefore are you not admitting you are pro-discrimination? That you are not in fact driven by the self; there is no 'will'- rather you are the sum of every decision regarding every choice presented within every moment... by others?"

And... I thought further- within every moment you are limited in your choices. By this I'll use the car example: To someone who has always driven second-hand cars, a brand new model may have been out of reach- outside of their choice group either because of cost or values. A surge in income or a change in the value system might suddenly make this an option. The minute it becomes the chosen option- that's the point one can no longer say "I am against discrimination."  And this point can be as simple as... one day choosing the branded product - however inexpensive this is - over the generic one. As simple as a bag of branded flour.

So stop. Stop being a 'minority'; stop being a flag or a colour or a creed or a class, or a sex or some Geo-political dot on a map that can't ever be stretched flat without distortion: Your dot does not exist! Stop. That's where I got to. What comes first? The minority or the insult? Yeah. Yeah. When you pick up that bag of branded flour- you lose the right to claim discrimination- that's the cost of it. You can't seek public relief from something self-created.

We use the word c^*+ a lot here, its part of the lingo. It has infiltrated every area of life and like that f-word, it has also peculiarly morphed into an endearment. "You're a cool c^*+ ."  "C^*+, where you been, we missed you!" Yep.  Watch any Aussie dashcam vid. Nothing represents us better as the larrikins of the world than the unrehearsed, spur of a moment comments flying out of our mouths in a road emergency. They are usually 2-3 expletive-filled statements, led by "You f*&^%$#* c^*+!"As a woman, I ought to be offended. It's damn hard though; there's no offence to it most of the time. It's just another bunch of words.

My son got to this point another way... and I bring this up now because it shows the differences between generations. I got there the old, methodical way. His brain 'computed'. He said, "Mum, if everyone in the world said the word "nigger" would the word still have the same impact? If everyone in the world called each other this name, like saying " You idiot!" In old movies, that was the same as calling someone "the village idiot" and today that would be someone mentally impaired, so, a politically incorrect thing. But now everyone's an idiot and no one takes offence. It's just a throw-away."

When he muses like this, I always ask for more info before I join the discussion. Partly to see how he got there, partly to understand how this is changing him. Maybe this, single-handedly, has been the only saving grace in my little family: My ability to be in their world. I sat for hours afterwards (a shameless luxury these days) and thought about it- for the first time really, which is nonsensical. How had I not thought about this before?

My son has evolved from me. I don't mean "come from me" either. I mean he's not just another iPhone model, he's the first iPhone. The mind boggles. He's a different model to me!

... An infinitely faster brain than mine. Agile. Not because of the almost forty years between us, no. It's not my brain that's slowed, it is his gaining impossibly imagined speeds. A heady confidence too, because yes, the world is at his fingertips- and he's learned how to play it. What used to take my brain many, many tedious hours to research and identify and copy and collate - scooping up all sorts of unnecessary clutter in the process - he accesses in seconds. Only what he needs. If he needs more- there's more. There's always room for more choice.

His decisions are based on an assurance only the right decisions of many others before him could have produced: Proven. By numbers. The instances of bad decision-making have significantly reduced for him. As has the risk. Those things occupying, bothering, crowding my thinking space- "What if I'm wrong, what if this, what if that-"  he has been freed of them. There's logic now: If 100 people bought this thing and 99% approved of/were satisfied with it- the probability is high that one can confidently say they made the 'right choice' and therefore, the product/service can be said to be significantly 'risk-free'. (The wrong one being by default that which satisfied the fewest expectations in those choosing before him.)

I can also do this now, sure. The difference is- I don't do it first every time. It's not instinctual for me. Plus- I don't trust 'group-think' as much as he does. I still buck. I have yet to lose the inefficiencies of trying to maintain personal space and liberty in this crowded, noisy, distraction-filled, multi-layered environment. 

One where... if something is of immediate interest? Whip out the phone; get instant satisfaction- whether this is the price of a pair of shoes, or whether the café you drove past five minutes ago had vegan options. I would have had to physically go there and see/ask, or else phone- or wait for the advert in the catalogue or in the newspaper or on TV. I had to wait to be fed information else work for it- I couldn't immediately satisfy my interest with minimal work and without stretches of time lost. And I had NO idea whether this thing of immediate interest had any value- till I tried it for myself. I had no easy access to the opinions of others apart from some vague percentages ("99% of women who tried this moisturiser were satisfied with the results") which I couldn't even check the validity of.

He is in fact, riding my successes, right over my failures. Shaking his head at my fuck-ups, unable to perceive a world where I blindly bought a product or service- without first "checking it out".

I AM THE ONE IN A FOG. Understand this. We oft accuse our teens of being in a foggy state of mind but we are so, so wrong! His mind is clear, uncluttered- as is his living. He holds on to NO past, in fact, his mind is running constantly ahead. There's no reason and no value to looking back. The only lesson needed learning: You must give, in order to obtain. Losing a freedom - say to drink without registering via photo ID at every venue - has me incensed, for instance. (These are new laws being rolled out here, whereby you can't enter a public bar/nightclub without providing - not showing but having recorded- your photo ID.) He thinks nothing of it other than a fair trade. He is, after all, gaining something: The perception of a safer social environment. Not losing something. (The way I see it.)

He is more 'in tune' with this world. He relies on the offerings/experiences of his peers- their views, their opinions, their interests. His finger is on the pulse of the whole thing. Mine hovers between living and observing- because there's just so much new shit to process!  He can afford bouts of induced nostalgia- hell, he can dive into my 70s life and fashion and music and films... he's just that little step away from total immersion via VR. (We are waiting for the best model.) He's mentally and to a large extent, psychologically prepared because he's lived in 'worlds' all his life. He's tasted alternate realities through sight and sound and vibration coursing his body via his fingertips.

He's met fantastical creatures and battled epic scenes. He's built worlds of his own. He's comfortable, letting go of this one and for an amount of time, immersing himself in another. I left that tech behind way before Spyro the Dragon changed from a friendly dragon to a fierce one. (I must admit here- I go back sometimes and play early Spyro. The boys wander in and, for a time, we're back to their little days when I bravely clutched that controller and swore to "finish everything"- they being too young for some of the harder feats.)

I'm not ready. I tried VR up north last year. Sure. I get the appeal. But nothing, nothing supersedes the really being there! Nothing- I don't care how real 'it feels'. It's not fucking real! It's a phantom pregnancy- think what that does to your head! (Yes, I am indignant.) My foggy brain hasn't yet caught up with this reality, and you want me to somehow cram more virtual ones in it? I don't have the room (nor do I care for brain suicide) so I will pass. I will preserve rather than immerse, ta.

Still, I envy him this ease.

I don't know what it's like at yours, but he'll often wander upstairs to my room and say "Can I show you something?" I usually ask "Can't you just tell me?" He ignores this and proceeds to play whatever vid has caught his attention. We watch it together. (Yesterday it was the 'elastic' and 'waterproof' properties of fire ants when threatened. Fascinating. I said, somewhere at the start, "I read they're being studied for applications in nanotech." A couple of minutes later, they mentioned what I'd just said. Dylan replied: "Don't start with your negative, conspiracy shit!")

My negative conspiracy shit. The fact I join dots and look ahead and see my children's future as a completely dystopian one. The fact the divide is growing between us- his mind soaring and mine wallowing, trying to hold on to... what exactly? The known? The trusted? The safe? Freedom?

... Travel: I am pulled to history and new (old) experiences and the romance of foreign destinations. I am tied to the past- equating travel with a fair amount of 'learning' and 'seeing' and 'partaking' of other cultures. I'll ride a camel or a donkey, I'll sit at a sidewalk cafe and drink in the sounds and smells and sights around me, I'll visit attractions and historical sites and pause... to gather all I hold in memory and to compare and, at times, maybe even taste disappointment. He sees no need for all that clutter. We go someplace, I am the one pointing things out and acting as tour-guide. When he doubts something I say or wants to check a fact I've touted, he whips out his phone and voila! "Mum, you're wrong, this happened first!" Or- more often than not, "Ye, you're right."

He likes modern. Hi-tech. He loves anything innovative and forward-looking. The ambience of a particular cafe matters little. The quality and price of the coffee do. As does the rating by others. Accommodation is of no interest. It's a room with a bed and it will do. He's as noncommittal in a five-star suite as he is in backpacker lodge. He won't 'do camping', as I discovered early on. He doesn't 'get' why a tent makes any difference to the experience of being wherever.

Nature he loves... but not the way I do. He sees the overall 'picture'. I record fine details: a spider web glistening; the sound of a kookaburra and the answering laugh from another; the musky smell of moist rain-forest... My brain is busy sucking every little thing in. His brain records the details I point out but he places no importance on them- not the way I do. The ones I don't point out are missed. Because his mind is already at whatever destination - be it beach/waterfall/reef/lake/river/snow/desert - and he's using the journey there to think of other things. Efficiency.

"Explain to me why seeing this web matters," he'd said one day.

"It's beautiful! Look at the work- how long it must have taken to construct. And the way it holds water droplets- don't they look like tiny diamonds to you?"

"Ye, but so what?"

What he was asking was: "How is this relevant to me?"

"You can't appreciate it? Admire the beauty of nature?"

"If I didn't like it I wouldn't have come, mum. But I don't see why I have to stop and look at every little thing and then have to learn about it."

In the instance of the web- he'd picked up a small twig and tossed it... then waited for the spider to come investigate.

"Watch this," he'd said.

The spider patiently dislodged the twig and began rebuilding the damaged part.

"How did you know it would do that?"

"I saw a vid."

I would never have thought or dared to do that. Nor will I ever discover what thought process led him to watch a video on the properties of spider webs- in fact, I'd put a hand out trying to stop him, which he'd evaded and after which I'd mumbled something about "... interfering with nature... humph."

He doesn't appreciate other things I hold sacred too. Like literature and art and 'antique/ancient' anything. He can tell you everything about the Mona Lisa. It leaves him untouched, however... they're mere facts, not a mystery. (I had to watch a vid he pulled up on how she historically went from a second-rate "meh" painting to the Queen she is today. This because she'd featured once in a meme and he wanted to know her history so he'd looked her up and learned about how she was stolen. He cares little for the workmanship.)

He reads books of immediate interest- same deal as the Mona Lisa; he's seen/read something; else it's been discussed somewhere online. Then he has to have whatever book ASAP. He asks me first because chances are... I have it. If not, he'll scour nearby thrift shops till he finds it. He has no use for the classics and certainly does not go 'losing' himself in literature, nor does he seek anything other than information from them. Books are tools. He'll read 'Signs of the Zodiac' and 'The Barefoot Investor' and 'Moby Dick' with the same dispassion. 

Then there's 'love'; always my sweetheart subject. My son thinks me insane. "Hanging around almost two years now on Facebook and what? You just continue doing that? Your entire world is Facebook now?"

"I'm only there because-"

"Ye ye." This said dismissively this time (he's had bouts of opposing thoughts re my online dalliance) as he'd swiped again on Tinder. Then he'd started swiping quickly (since I'd stopped talking; busy thinking of a justification). His finger was flying. He'd got to the end and said: "I only got three matches this time." He'd been disappointed. I had no idea what happened. He'd then walked me through the process, leaving a couple of cheeky comments in his wake. Instant responses - impressive! One profile he'd continued with- showing me how he 'played' by typing out a flirty comment.

"Flirting is really a game now," I'd thought.

YET. He seeks and he longs for a love outside of the screen. He is not interested in 'online' relationships. He wants his, real. Tinder is a gateway; an efficient process through which to quickly sort out the best from the rest. His brain gets it. It makes perfect sense to him: It's fast, precise, and it eliminates that bane of all prospective lovers of my generation: "Does this person like me?" How many hours did we waste in the past wondering just this? How many fuck-ups have we left behind, either not picking up signals, else misreading them? Everyone has a story or two or a dozen. Tinder does away with this. He gets a match- there's a decent probability he can pursue it without that stress. He already knows: She (whoever he's matched up with) likes the sight of him.

How good is that? He knows she likes him! Simple. Doubt eliminated, he asks her out. They have a starting place from where to launch: She's not some stranger in a bar; he's checked her out on Social Media, Googled her name, looked over her interests and her friends, done all 'due diligence'. He knows a lot about her before they've spoken a word. As does she.

Backtrack to me: I got nothing at his age. I got a guy in a bar, background and personality unknown. Interests and likes unknown- I don't even know if he bloody likes ME! I ask around the group of friends out with me that night, no one knows him. Do I or don't I? Doubt, uncertainty, maybe a touch of fear. Many, many questions as my brain processes what little visual info it receives (appearance, mannerisms, the tone of voice overheard etc., etc.) and tries to give me a nay or yea based on past experience- no other info.    

Closer inspection might have disclosed some things. But not the fact he's a 'mean and illiterate drunk'- this discovered on his profile... on Facebook. (If that were today.) Where the idiot posted a boasting picture of a now-former mate with a bloodied nose and the caption: "Whose next ya c&*#@?"  

... Yeah. I think back and know with a fair amount of certainty I would have been right into Tinder, just to avoid the idiots; to have the efficiency and the pre-existing certainty that I am liked aforehand. It would have saved time, effort, and... angst.

Of course, I too can join it! (Remember my brief fling with a dating site?) But I won't. It bothers me. My pic glanced at for a second and then swiped and disposed of... else a hunt conducted for any digital footprint of mine which is then scrutinized? Nuh. I'll leave that to the young ones. They have time. 

He has time. This, perhaps, is the biggest difference between our generations. Despite University, despite a lively social life- he is never rushed. He cruises. Time does not feature in his thinking. He doesn't have to make allowances, prioritise, defer one thing for another. He can split his screen into three and watch a movie, fix a glitch in his GitHub project, and Google whatever in the movie stirs his mind for more info. He doesn't 'lose' himself there either. Movies are things. He can't fully immerse himself in them because he's passive- an observer. I watch a movie and... I'm in it, I'm lost in the story, quickly finding points of connection. He looks at technicalities: The length of a "single take" or a "camera angle", or "the quality of this fade-in, mum".

I gave life to a son who in many ways has surpassed me; this, afforded by all the advances birthed in my lifetime and perfected within his. And this child of mine has evolved. He is not 'an extension' of me, he is a new version entirely.

Though his heart first started beating inside me, his brain bears little resemblance to mine. Except in the areas of empathy and decency. He has somehow managed to retain these qualities. And it is because of these I celebrate and... perhaps even envy him his evolvement?

The fear? The watching him getting sucked further and further into an absolute loss of liberty? Watching his rights (hell, his inalienable rights) not simply tread upon but eliminated systematically; his individuality and sole, critical thinking, replaced by group-think and the 'hive mind'?

That's mine to deal with. He does not see it or feel it. He does not understand my angst. His mind has processed exactly what the 'net' means so he's moving in it 'knowingly'. There's so much damn excitement to his days: Savouring this innovation or that discovery and 'seeing' how this will be of benefit to him- trading, in turn, some measure of his freedom or privacy. Knowingly.

I try to think ahead... to a grandchild. I use my two young nephews as guides. The older one, at three and a half barely has a vocabulary. He spends his hours in front of a huge screen where colours and sounds and... peculiar cartoon 'voices' speak to him. Took me a while to understand what few words he can say- this because he speaks like them!

He won't eat unless he has the iPad in hand- or as he calls it, the "Googoo". What he lacks in conversation, he more than makes up for in dexterity and memory: He types in the password, swipes till he finds a game or a video on Kid's Youtube and then... he is lost to the screen. Food can be fed him, robotically. The odd nudge (because he can't 'hear' outside of the screen) to "Chew, chew, chew!" since he's so immersed he has ceased all movement but that of his eyes- hell, that's the norm for his age group!

The younger one- he's different. Maybe because of personality, maybe because the second child is never exposed to 'first-child' parental nervousness or fussiness or... over-protection. He engages far more often and more willingly. He laughs at things we do, not at things on the big TV. He listens... without distraction.

I rejoice at this. But he is only two years old. There are many more formative years ahead. I fear he, too, will be sucked in. Those damn bright colours and hypnotising rhythms and... the endless distractions proffered up by screens... I cannot see him escaping!

Are they also 'evolved' from my two? Definitively. Dylan struggles just as much as I do with what he sees- or fails to see in his much younger cousins. He shakes his head just as often as I do.

Whatever comes after iPhone 99... they are it.

"Dylan... you reckon dementia is a by-product of old minds overwhelmed by too much change?"

"Don't start again with 'Back in my day!' No one cares, mum."

"... But back in my day... we cared! Least enough to safeguard our freedoms!"

"Ye, but you traded other things. There's always a trade, mum. You gave up time and effort and accumulated clutter- for your knowledge. How much time did you waste without the internet? And isn't time wasted time lost?"

"I guess..."

This, during a movie. When it finished, he said, "Now I can go and read the reviews. There's a couple of things about it I wanna check out too." He switched from my large screen to his laptop and began clacking keys.

I was still back in the moment in the movie when... their eyes had made contact and there had been that second or two of perfect exchange - you know - when the chemistry between the actors jumps out at you? And you are her, or him and- you 'feel' this chemistry and you want to linger, savour it afterwards?

When did evolution shorten to... the next heartbeat in the belly?

That's the question this mother grapples with.