To Change Is Progress; To Stay Unchanged Is Progress Too

Here I am, clinging to a digital civilization that evolves rapidly with the flow of time.

Over these past few decades—thinking in terms of the telephone—the ages have shifted from the black rotary phone to the push-button phone, the cordless, the flip phone, the smartphone; and now, having plunged from 4G into 5G, I can hold a video conference with several people from far away.

In the very midst of this, a COVID state-of-emergency declaration was issued, and at my design office too we are trying out this system for the first time with those working from home—morning, midday, and closing check-in and report meetings.

For me it comes close to the surprise and delight of when the push-button phone became cordless, and more than seriously listening and speaking, it is a playful game of make-believe in which my heart bounces at talk off the main topic: “Can you hear me? Can you see me? What’s that background? You look like you just woke up. That’s your off-duty face.”

But while I am convinced that in time, just as the standing telephone once did, this tool will become a taken-for-granted way of working, I also feel a trace of loneliness.