I was listening to a Spotify playlist the other day and the Beatles song “Norwegian Wood” came on. I have heard this song hundreds of times but was still drawn to listen for the sitar that makes it so distinctive. However, the song begins with a few bars of a beautiful acoustic guitar and this threw me. I momentarily wondered whether I was hearing a cover version. Then the sitar began and all was again well with the world.
This brief episode led me down one of those proverbial rabbit holes. It dawned on me that when this song first aired in 1965 the vast majority of people listening to it not only had never heard a sitar used in a pop song, they had never heard a sitar, period. In fact, most probably did not even know that such an instrument existed. I wondered what it must have been like to hear this “strange” sound with no frame of reference as to its origin.
This led me into considering those innovations that come so out of the blue there was no prior context to categorize them. Most inventions evolve from something familiar. Gutenberg’s printing press may have been a deviation of cataclysmic proportions, but what came out was still a book, and people knew what a book was. The first transatlantic flight was an incredible achievement, but the real shock must have been when people first looked up into the sky and saw a man-made machine passing overhead.
The most famous reaction to an innovation in modern times might be the projection of moving pictures onto a large screen. Legend has it that when the Lumiere brothers first exhibited their film showing a locomotive coming straight toward the camera as it pulled into the La Ciotat Station in 1895 people were so startled that they screamed and ran to the back of the room. Film historians have noted that the closest technique prior to that time producing a naturalistic moving image was the camera obscura, and that would have been no equivalent to what the Lumiere’s were presenting.
There is a similar sense when you hear Boomer’s wax poetic about Pong, a simple game with two “paddles” on either side of the screen batting an imaginary ball back and forth at incredibly slow speeds. When this game first hit bars and arcades it was a wonder. This was nothing like the pinball machines which dominated prior to then. While it was quickly eclipsed, Pong still holds a special place in the hearts of many.
Of more import was the invention of the microscope. The telescope may have brought objects closer, but people knew that the heavens were full of wonders. The microscope, on the other hand, reveals an unknown world that totally engulfs us, and what a bizarre world it is. It wasn’t just that we were seeing everyday objects close up, we were seeing other living organisms on our clothes, on our bed sheets, on our skin!!! It had to have been a shock, to say the least.
Similarly, the discovery of the X-Ray at the turn of the 20th Century must have been mind-boggling. The was no precedent for being able to see through something seemingly solid. Could such superpowers even be imagined prior to that discovery? Those shown an early X-Ray and being told that they were looking at the inside of their own body must have been incredulous.
Probably those most amazed by innovation were our stone age ancestors. The invention of the wheel, or the transformation of rocks into tools must have been awe-inspiring. Not surprisingly, Gary Larson has captured the likely tenor of those times in the cartoon below.
J. Krishnamurti understood the power of this unadulterated mindset better than anyone else I have encountered. He put it in terms of stopping the internal monologue which moderates experience. He used the example of a person who witnesses an incredible sunset and then returns the next night to experience the same. However, the mind will inevitably make comparisons, dulling the impact regardless of the reality.
I think that one of the reasons little children can be so fascinating is because they do not have that filter. For young kids so many things are innovations without context. We can watch their amazement at the everyday and be entranced by it. We may chuckle, for example, at their astonishment (or fear) of fireworks, but we all secretly wish we could experience that same sense of the unprecedented.
A favorite mind game has always been the question if you could go back in time to witness one historical event, what would it be. Some will say Lincoln delivering the Gettysburg Address or the Signing of the Declaration of Independence or an original Shakespeare play being performed at the Globe. However, I fear that they all would be somewhat disappointing, knowing what we now know.
On the other hand, if we could erase our memories of things to come and experience the first phonograph record, or the first photograph, that would be something. A new way of experiencing the world that most of us could not have conceived of before that moment. That would be a time trip worth taking.
Alas, you cannot erase what you know. As much as I revere Krishnamurti, I cannot turn off the internal monologue. It is constantly babbling away, interposing itself on experiences. Still, with the rate of technological change, I have little doubt that we are in for surprises that few of us can contemplate. The trick will be to enjoy that when it happens.
From The Beatles to Krishnamurti. As far as rabbit holes go, not too shabby.