‘Whoa” is spelled “woah” now. Not officially, but commonly. Like, if you text “whoa” to a person under the age of 35, they’ll think you misspelled it.
The strangest things are changing. Beyond the disruptive/productive impact of technology and the sorcery of social media, the details of everyday life are so different compared to just 10 or 20 years ago.
Still, it seems like the right things aren’t changing and the new innovations aren’t fixing pervasive problems.
You can rent a bike on your credit card to zip around Honolulu’s jacked-up, pot-holed, traffic-crazy streets, but make sure to weave around the legions of homeless people sleeping on the sidewalks with their tents and carts and bathroom buckets spilling out into the lanes. Transportation options have changed. Traffic hasn’t.
You can pay for parking with a credit card … if you can find parking … and if you’re trusting enough to leave your car unattended and vulnerable to thieves. You don’t need quarters, but parking isn’t more available or safe.
You can look up any bit of history or list of facts on a slim phone that goes with you everywhere, but people are still misinformed, rushing to judgment, quick to overheated reaction. Facts are easier to find yet less likely to be believed.
Things are so much better. And yet they are not.
And despite all the changes we’ve seen, it’s still the same problems, on and on:
The rail project is a mind-blowing mess. And then we don’t hear about it. And then there’s something new that we learn and it’s even messier.
Homeless people are living a terrible existence in public streets and parks. Some politician or program claims a partial victory or a park gets shut down and cleaned up, but after a while, it’s clear that all those people have just migrated to a new spot but are still homeless.
The public schools need money. And they need teachers. And the teachers need money. And in between there are stories about some terrific kid who won some terrific academic honor regardless of the circumstances. It’s still “regardless”.
The construction industry is busy-busy-busy putting up huge high-rises in town but regular people can’t find an affordable place to live, and when you drive by those gleaming buildings at night, the lights aren’t on because nobody’s home. The prisons are overcrowded. The beaches are overcrowded. The secret hiking trails are overcrowded. Overcrowding never gets solved.
So many changes and innovations but so few solutions for the deepest ailments and thorniest problems.
Maybe all the rapid changes have distracted people from demanding and effecting real change for these and other deep troubles and societal ills.
What good is change if the change isn’t good? Is your life easier now than it was a decade or two ago or is it just more cluttered and crowded and expensive? In the midst of all the modern conveniences, are things harder than ever? Woah.
Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.
