Allister, my one year old son, has recently learned that he can turn a light on or off with the flip of a switch. It's not that easy for him to flip those switches as it is for adults, he can't normally reach high enough. I put a bench for him to stand on by the light switch in his room the other day and he turned the light on and off to his heart's content. He giggled and pointed with glee at the way lights would shine forth or hide themselves at his command. It was one of those joyful moments of parenting to see my boy learning, appreciating, and enjoying the world around him and his place in it.
Seeing my child find such happiness in turning on and off a light inspired me to consider how wonderful a thing that really was. Why shouldn't he be excited? It wasn't that long ago that lighting his room would have required lighting some sort of fire, and been significantly more dangerous. I'll let my son play with a light switch, but I wouldn't let him play with matches. Risk aside, it is easier to flip a switch than even the simple process striking a match and touching it to the wick of a candle.
The infrastructure required to make this happen is remarkable to consider. I have a fleet of servants devoted to ensuring that electrical current flows properly to my house. Sure, I share those services with thousands of other people, but I receive a service that many of the stateliest lordly manners full of servants didn't enjoy.
I once had a history professor opine that, "civilization is the gift we get for free." I often consider how fortunate we are to live in the time we now live. Not everyone would agree with me, but I reject the thinking of the paleo-nostalgia and 'born in the wrong era' crowd. I like to remind people that it wasn't until 1980 that smallpox was a very real threat to human life and happiness. Now, it's one so theoretical it's hard to think of it as real rather than as fictional as other elements of Victorian romances, Gothic horror stories, and wild west adventures. Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of our Nature presents convincing evidence of how much violence (not just to one another but even toward animals - did you know cat burning as a form of entertainment in medieval times?) has declined throughout human history. It's almost certain that the future will be even better than our era, but even by the meager standards of rivalry and jealousy we can look back on the whole of human history and smile smugly at how we have it better.
That's an exercise that we need to actively perform, though. Whether you call it the hedonic treadmill, progress of civilization, or just ungratefulness it's easy for even the most wonderful things to become commonplace and ignored. We relegate miracles to an expectation, and then become grumpy when they stop being performed for us, if even for only a few hours. I'm blessed to be a parent, because when I see my son learning to walk, trying new foods, or playing with the light switch I can see a glimpse of the world through the experience of someone from whom that world is new and unknown. The world I see from those eyes with my much more mature perspective seems pretty wonderful.
