When he was a boy in the 1950s, the world felt like it needed to be explored. The street was his prairie and also his fitba’ and adventure playground, enough for him to hold in his young hands. Afternoons stretched long and slow—he and his friends rode bikes until the streetlights flickered on, no one worrying where they were. Neighbours knew each other by name, doors were left unlocked, and entertainment was a radio humming in the corner or the crackle of a record player.

Now, in the late autumn of his years, he looks around and sees a world both dazzling and in many ways, overwhelming. Screens glow in pockets, living rooms and bedrooms, voices speak and music flows across continents in an instant. So, many of us,  living in a bubble.  Children play indoors more often than outside. Those you should know pass without a word. There is speed, noise, connection everywhere, but not the kind that feels simple or close.

He doesn’t deny the progress—medicine, technology, possibilities his younger self couldn’t have dreamed of…but then again he can’t help remembering the slower pace, the ordinary comforts: the sound of birds, the laughter of children playing outside, families gathering around the television set because there was only one.

 Sometimes he wonders and in many cases, knows, that if, in gaining so much, something quieter and more human has quietly slipped from our grasp…. Is this called evolution?

recorded 2018 on imac, logic pro, solo