Mail Call - The pace of a post.

The communication of complex ideas has been foundational to our species success, allowing us to outperform other Hominins by an order of magnitude. We are able to stand on the shoulders, not just of our ancestors instincts, but their experience and knowledge.

Yet for the vast majority of our species existence, complex information has only been able to travel at the same rate us.

It is only exceptionally recently that we have accelerated this spread parabolically. This is the landscape you create within, and are created by. To appreciate that we should look at what came before, and perhaps remind ourselves to take some heed with the pace we now travel at.

By and large for our entire history information has travelled at our pace. To finish the writing of a book in London and send it to Rome in the 15th century would take upwards or in excess of 3 weeks (this is to say nothing of the time taken in the reproduction of that book, but thats a thread for another day) And there is every chance that war, weather, or just general illness could waylay that message even further, perhaps destroying it and its carrier altogether.

Now there have of course been systems that exceed this pace, but fall down due to other limits. West Africa's talking drums could transmit complex messages across miles, but rely on ephemeral and transient signals and experience notable limits (eg. the amount of differing communications able to coexist, the distance between and amount of experienced relay individuals required). There are also other more rudimentary cases such as the beacon fires of multiple nations, but these are severely limited in what they could say beyond a basic warning.

So our pace was the pace at which information spread, and that is just on an individual level, the mass distribution of idea and messages compound this issue and reduce the pace of a "post" even more.

This remained relatively consistent for centuries, and whilst we developed greater pace, efficiency and range of movement with innovations such as steam power and the national mail, the message ever struggled to outpace the messenger.

Until that was, in the 19th century, a new "talking drum" was invented - that threw aside old limitations - in the form of the Optical telegraph, swiftly followed by the electrical telegraph.

This was a true turning point in our ability to communicate, our first taste of what was to come. Near immediate messaging, removed of the issues found with talking drums and other signal based systems. One single central post office had 450 machines in it, an impossible signal load to handle or interpret via drums, flags, or mirrors. What's more the information could travel as far as there were cables to carry it.

From days and months to minutes and hours, the pace of the world had fundamentally changed.

You dont need me to fill in what comes next, the phone, the radio, e-mail, texts. We accelerated, undeniably. A pauper can send a message as far as a prince for the exact same penny. Vast swathes of knowledge, images, videos, our voices recorded, transcribed, and even interpreted... All of it in an instance.

The speed at which we transmit has undoubtedly impacted our societies and our self, but the extent, the morale balance sheet of it all, I cant surmise. I couldn't possibly say whether the grey matter computers in our minds are capable of keeping up with this pace, or whether it has a net determinantal affect on our mental health.

All id want you to do is consider it in your life and in what you create. Consider all the information you would have had to process a hundred years ago, and how many orders of magnitude more you process today. Consider all you're able to transmit, the reach of your voice, and what you say with it. Because never before has any individual been able to hear and say so much, so don't feel bad about needing to tune out the noise every once in a while.