We lost power for about 5 hours today, after a pretty violent thunderstorm took out a few power lines and effectively cut off our neighborhood from the rest of the world for a brief moment in time. Apart from the initial frustration at the terrible inefficiencies of our utility system, the whole experience was very eye-opening for me for a couple of reasons. One, it was yet another reminder for me that people in this day have become way too dependent on electronics, and two, that we quickly moving away from an older generation of thought that still has much to offer. I suppose that the two go hand in hand to an certain extent, but I find the latter a lot more troubling.

The age of philosophy is dead. And yet, this was not always the case. What began with Aristotle and Plato survived through the medieval ages, and eventually gave rise to more contemporary thinkers: at first largely political, a la Machiavelli, Hobbes, Descartes, Locke, Rousseau, and later, household names like Nietzsche and Freud. It seems that little progress has been made in the field since the death of these great minds. How many people today would identify themselves as philosophers?

When faced with the same issue, I think the majority of people would say “who cares?” And yet, one only needs to take a good high school course in modern thought and literature to realize how important philosophy has been to our development as a society. It is, as many philosophers of old would probably say, an essential component of our functioning subconscious. What is sad is that pure thinkers no longer have a place in our society. We have great minds at the forefront of every field, as well as those who dedicate their lives to helping find solutions to physical, tangible problems of our modern world, whether it global warming or health care. But what about the mental problems? Are we a culture of changing morals and values? In an age where the majority of people dedicate more time in their lives to technology than religion, to what do we really put our faith into? These are difficult questions that need to be explored, because at the end of the day, the way we think, whether consciously or subconsciously, will determine how we act.

The great irony of technology is it’s ability to bring people together while simultaneously pushing them apart. Modern communication devices have helped to create a truly global network at the expense of personal, face to face interaction. Email has replaced the pen and paper, and even phone calls are giving way to text messages. Convenience is the end goal for all of these developments, but at what price? The act of writing a letter or having to travel a long distance just to meet someone used to mean something. Today’s technology allows us to get all of that done without having to leave the comfort of our homes. Even in public places, spontaneity is dying. Having an interesting conversation with a total stranger you bumped into on the subway no longer happens, because everyone is engrossed in their iPods and Blackberries. If putting in earphones is a subconscious way of saying “don’t talk to me,” then it is both shocking and ironic how truly isolated we have become as individuals.

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4 hours after the lights had turned off in my house, I stepped outside into the cool evening breeze. As I walked barefoot through the moist grass, I thought about my summer in the Jersey Pinelands 2 years ago. We had gone to an island off the Jersey shore, where there was no running water, electricity, or bathrooms. Although it was a totally unfamiliar experience for all of us, we quickly immersed ourselves into the lifestyle of island. This, I thought, was the beauty of the human mind: the ability to adapt, both physically and mentally, to our environment, and to synthesize our experiences into both our conscious and subconscious. We will change according to our circumstances, but sometimes, in order to truly revisit the way we see the world, we need to make that mental leap before anything else. Unaware that I had already wandered to the edge of my backyard, I suddenly realized that I was happy that we had lost power, and with that thought, I smiled and looked up to admire the stars.