They screaming Tupac's back, Tupac's back.

Blown Away.

My parents just got themselves a Mac and are taking classes to learn how to operate it.  Over the past 10 years, it wasn’t uncommon for me to get a random phone call to help with a computer issue. I quickly realized that skills that I take for granted are major tasks for them.   My mother has admitted to me several times that she’s intimidated by technology and that she’s awestruck by what you are able to do with a computer. It just shows how the times have changed.  Put my dad under a car and he will handle his business; put me there and I might as well take a nap.  Since the mid-90’s, my generation has experienced such technological growth, that we’ve become desensitized to it.  I can recall the early days of the Internet, my 1^st MP3 player and playing with a touch screen capabilities for the 1^st time.  These adaptations came so quickly that I never had time to be amazed… 

Then it happened.

I’m sitting at my computer and click on a link that was sent via email (another thing I take for granted) and I’m watching one of my childhood idols perform on stage.  The problem is this man was murdered in Las Vegas over 15 years ago.  But there he was on stage performing his song, “Hail Mary”, chain swinging.  In that very moment, technology literally brought 2Pac back to life.  This wasn’t some CGI-green screen creation that’s better suited for a Spider-Man movie.  No, this was a 3-D hologram on a stage, live, in front of tens of thousands of screaming fans.  It was one of the most amazing things that I had ever seen.  The level of detail and the natural movements gave you the feeling that you were literally seeing something from the future.

After all iPods, iPads and iPhones, I really didn’t think anything would shock me again.  I knew technology would continue improve rapidly making yesterday’s “breakthrough” completely obsolete but I wasn’t sure if something would ever make my jaw drop.  Seeing 2Pac literally peform a song with Snoop Dogg made me realize that nothing is impossible.  We are quite possibly on the tip of a very massive iceberg called innovation and we can be living in a very different world in the next 10 years.  The scary thing is, they are only going to get better with the hologram technology and it could get so good that you may even doubt that Elvis is dead when he pops up at a concert in Memphis.

I think I finally understand how my mom feels.