How Fast It Goes

Timeless?

This last weekend for Labor Day, I took the family to our favorite amusement park for our annual holiday tradition.  As I rode down the modified ski lift that the kids insist on taking as a low-energy palate cleanser between thrill rides, and saw the whole of the valley and park before me, the kids lazily kicked their heels up with their cousin on the bench ahead of us. It was all very serene, and more than a little wistful. My wife took out her cell phone and took a minute-long movie for her Facebook feed. I just looked, becoming very aware of the cinematic nature before us, as more and more of the park revealed itself from the trees.

While the view seemed timeless, it really was anything but. There were new rides that we had never seen, an ever-growing mix of people, changing lights and so on, and so on. As usually happens around this time of year, the trees are just starting to turn, and the mix of smells from the forest and the food is never quite the same twice. Change is the only constant.

Changing even faster than the park were the passengers in the car ahead of us. My kids are 10 and 15, and while they both still love the place, things change, and at some point, maybe vacations together might seem more like an obligation than a treat. Also, well, my eldest keeps getting attention in ways that haven't happened before. There may come a day when she decides she has more interesting things to do than hang out in the same old park with the same old parents.

Life Is Changing. It's changing really, really fast.

From a marketing and advertising standpoint, I'm well over halfway done on the legal limits of parenting, with changes to my demographic class coming up quick. And the need to keep in touch with new technology, thoughts and and ideas has never been greater, really.

But the funny thing about those changes? The kids are going through them with speed, too. We were in a hotel room for a couple of days, and the TV screen never went on. That wouldn't have happened just two years ago, when we took our last vacation. It's also not because my kids are that virtuous and active, but because they'd much rather spend time with their personal screens (phones and tablets), where the content is more under their control, and they have more privacy and interaction.

Media buyers will note that their business is just fine, really. They sound a lot like record labels a couple of decades ago, or travel agents, and so on. That's just how fast it goes, and nothing is slowing down. Or probably ever will.

Even in the most timeless of places.

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