I’m Older Than the Internet: The Age of Dreamers

OK, if you are on the younger side, you may be wondering how I got a website with my exact name on it.

It’s because I was born before the internet was invented.

I’m not exaggerating. I’m literally older than the internet.

I was born not long after they put a man on the moon.

When I arrived, people were burning bras and protesting the war in Vietnam.

The world was loud, idealistic, and convinced it could change everything.

I feel like I was born at the tail end of the age of dreamers, and those dreams are something we’re still trying to make real.

But now we are dreaming with the aid of machines. The one thing machines can’t do is dream. They can simulate it—but they’re only processing information.

When I was a kid, the most advanced piece of technology in our house was the television.

“Screen time” meant how long you were allowed to sit in front of it before someone told you to go outside and remember you had a body.

My dad called the TV the idiot box and warned me if I watched too much, I would become very stupid.

The absolute coolest thing that ever happened to me as an adolescent was the invention of cable TV.

My babysitter had it.

We would sit too close to the screen, watching MTV—

Michael Jackson defying gravity, Madonna rewriting the rules in real time.

It felt like the future had arrived, and it was wearing eyeliner. Like Prince and Boy George. 

And now—

Now I carry a device in my pocket that can answer any question, show me any face, deliver any opinion, and somehow still leave me wondering what I was looking for in the first place.

I used to wait all week to see one music video.

Now I can watch a thousand in an hour and remember none of them. In fact I don’t watch them. 

Probably because it’s too easy. 

I used to ask my dad to teach me how to fix things around the house.

Now there are a thousand YouTube videos teaching me how to do things, but it doesn’t seem as fun.

Somewhere along the way, everything got faster.

And I’m not sure we got better at being alive.

Now every time I use AI, I’m amazed.

It can think in seconds about things that have taken me a lifetime to understand.

But is that understanding—

or just speed?

When I was in college, the only way you could cheat in class was by reading Cliff Notes instead of the book, and if you were really resourceful, you could hire someone to write your papers for you.

Now you can click a button and outsource the thinking.

The question is whether we’re outsourcing something else with it.

AI can’t notice the flowers for you.

It can’t pay attention when someone you love is talking to you.

Google can tell you exactly how to get to someone’s house.

It can’t tell you how to speak to their heart.

You can make friends online while playing video games, but does it feel the same as sitting around a table playing Trivial Pursuit at game night with a group of friends?

I am terrible at trivia, but I love a good trivia night at the bar.

You can’t get loaded cheesy fries on the internet.

You can’t sit next to your best friend and tease her about ridiculous inside jokes that make no sense but leave you on the floor laughing.

That feels like a life.

Cell phones, computer screens, video games, streaming services—

they feel like life sometimes.

They are facsimiles. They are playing pretend.

If we’re not actually living while we use them, what are we becoming?

Are machines imitating us or are we imitating them? 

I am old enough to remember being bored.

I was a daydreamer as a child, I would create entire scenarios and lives in my head. I had imaginary boyfriends and played by myself when there was no one around for me to play with.

I watched a lot of TV as a child, but that was the only real distraction I had from my own thoughts. I read a lot of books and got lost in them. I remember pretending I was a doctor with my cousin, who is a real-life doctor now. We would pretend we lived in a big city, had cute boyfriends, and went to cool parties.

Do kids still get bored enough to imagine entire lives?

If I’m honest, I don’t want to give all this new technology up.

I’m just as hooked on it as everyone else.

What I don’t want is to forget who I am in the middle of all this speed and convenience.

I don’t want to forget how to do nothing.

Meditation is a kind of nothing—

not thinking, not doing, just watching your thoughts and letting them pass.

AI can’t give you that.

It can’t give you the feeling of being fully inside your own life.

I want to dream. To create a better life—maybe even a better world.

People have always said that.

The difference now is how easy it is to stop trying.

There’s a risk that we will let our gadgets and machines pretend they are dreaming for us.

There’s always something beeping.

Something flashing.

Someone sending a meme, a reel—

we’re speaking to each other in machine-made expressions.

We don’t even talk on the phone much anymore.

When I was a kid, we had a landline, and I would rack up the phone bill talking for hours to my friends.

I have no idea what we were saying or how we talked for that long,

but I wonder if we’ve lost that art of conversation.

Joy, peace, love—

they sound generic until they’re missing.

Are we trading them for something easier?

I am more than my gadgets and my ability to navigate information.

I was already a complete person before I had a smartphone or a laptop.

I don’t want to forget that.

That person—

the one who could still dream.

That life. 

nina

A couple of friends and I started a podcast called 2 Curries and a Ranch. Listen here: https://2curriesandaranch.riverside.com/  or wherever you get your podcasts.

Imagine two loud, dramatic, hilarious Indian women explaining to a white man what it's like to grow up and live in America. Join us for laughter, deep thoughts, and witty banter about life, love and culture. We tell it like it is, with honest, bold and funny stories, discussions and arguments. We explore boundaries and challenge norms. Join us for a good talk.

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