FAST FORWARD ERA - by Jefferson Nnadiekwe

It's the year 3024, and the location is a secondary school. A history class is in session. The bespectacled teacher is in the middle of a lesson about a past era - the 2020s. There are a lot of names which have been coined to describe this era in particular, but the teacher has just come up with his own term; The Fast Forward Era. My little time to glimpse at the future is up and I'm back living in the Fast Forward Era. What is the fast forward era? It can be easily defined as an era characterized by the persistent and perpetual hurry which the people living in it always seem to be. By the people living in it, I mean you and I. One question often pops into my head: why are we so much in a hurry? Another question which I often ponder is: where are we in a hurry to? You have to be the most clueless person in the world if you haven't noticed this phenomenon. Everywhere you look, everyone seems to be in a flipping hurry. Everything around us is set up with the quick changing mindset. Trends, fads, social media, media, etc. All of these are structured to have a really short life span. It's a tall task to hold the undivided attention of a group of people for a little more than a few minutes - we are constantly searching for what's new. You can blame this on social media, you can also blame it on the rapid rate at which technological advancements happen. One thing is certain, and that is the fact that it is human made. Nature might have undergone minor changes, but I really can't think of any change that demanded that we live in fast forward as a form of adaptation. If you're thinking about using aspirations as an excuse, know that generations before us also had aspirations. That did not stop them from employing the wisdom to take things slow and steady. In a stark contrast, it's so common to see young people put so much pressure on themselves in this era. It's like there's an unanimous agreement that success is limited to a certain age, hence the rush to amass wealth before we get to that age. In some misguided wisdom, that ideology is supposed to motivate us, but in reality it only makes us more miserable, burnt out, and desperate. Fast fashion is a thing. Due to the frequent evolution of what's in trend, textile companies have compromised quality on the alter of keeping up with what's in vogue. Clothes are no more made to last - since there's always something fresh around the corner, why bother to make clothes durable? The major problem with this is the massive increase in waste and its effects on the environment. European countries can only ship so much 'thrift' clothing to Africa while seeking alternative ways to dispose of the discarded garments.  What about fast food? Perhaps we need Aproko Doctor to give us a lesson on the dangers posed by fast foods. To point out a few; the surge in cancer rates from over consumption of processed foods. There has been no time in history where humans have consumed so much junk and processed food as we do now. Even I am a tad guilty of this. Over saturation of contents on social media shortens our attention span a little more each time we feed our brains with these short and quick empty skits/videos. Even music isn't excluded - gone are the days we'd experience a 5 minutes song and soak in every second of it. Now, it's almost a cardinal sin for an artist to release a single past the 2 minutes 58 seconds mark. Why? Because nobody 'has time' to listen to a long song. Arguably, there has been a surge in mortality rates around the globe. I've often heard the older generation say in their days, young people didn't die as much as they do now. I did think why that was, and my mind came up with the best thing that explains it to me. The universe is a mystery that gives us what aligns with our living habits. Perhaps, it has arrived at a cruel conclusion that we do not want to spend a lot of time here on earth, and so it ushers us to another place - a timeless place. No one can tell how long the Fast forward era is going to last. Ironically the only slow thing about this era seems to be its duration. Sadly, there is no solution to this as we are already in too deep. But a few of us can definitely develop the consciousness to slow down a bit.

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