Live long enough, and you'll see the pendulum swing back and forth.
TV programming got unbundled through streaming, only to be rebundled into Netflix, Apple TV, Hulu, Disney+, and Amazon Prime.
CDs were unbundled into MP3s and rebundled into Spotify.
Fashion from the gloriously awkward 90s are now back en vogue to the amusement of many elder millennials like myself.
Death to JNCO jeans! Love long JNCO jeans!
I've long had a fascination with the back and forth of the pendulum. Instead of feeling trapped by the inevitable ebb and flow, I've found a certain comfort in the paradox of the inevitability of change. This, too, shall change. And change. And change.
The movement of a pendulum can be represented as a sine wave, with the x-axis representing time.
However, I've always had a hunch that unlike the mathematical representation of a pendulum, an idea moves from one end to the other on a slightly different path. Ideas have a different set of physics to them, and they come back with a certain spin that wobbles and moves as it carries along the context of the particular moment.
So instead of imagining a wave going back and forth in perpetuity, I like to think that ideas look more like spirals. Yes, they move back and forth, but they're not trapped in an endless cycle. Things still move forward and progress, propelled by each cycle's particular logic and flavor.
In the visual below, click on the animate button to see how a wave can transform into a spiral. You can also play around with the different sliders to manipulate the wave / spiral. This will make more sense on a desktop device.
But what causes this transformation?
I like to think that within a complex system of infinite, interwoven relationships of causes and effects, our creativity, ingenuity, and healthy doses of serendipity come together to create a force that opens up new possibilities and futures.
We know that progress is possible, but not inevitable. It's up to us and our collective ability to learn from the past, fiercely imagine new possibilities, and build our way forward from a wave to a spiral.
And who knows? Maybe JNCO jeans will be back in 2044. Or maybe they never really went away in the first place.
Btw, if you liked the animation of the wave transforming into a spiral, you can collect it as a NFT here.
::ducks for cover::