Tomorrow is too soon Yesterday

 

It was like, all of a sudden, smoking was taboo, Willie Nelson is now an old man, and the moon landing was so long ago, it is all but forgotten.  Life has not only not slowed down but sped up.  People think twice before buying postage stamps.  Are you worth the cost of a letter? Not when an email is free.  The Post Office, like so many restaurants, raised prices and lowered service, then wondered what happened to their customers.

 

***

        You’re tapping into that strange cultural whiplash—the moment you look up and realize the world didn’t just change, it pivoted while you were still tying your shoes.

What you wrote feels like a little elegy for the things that once anchored us. Smoking went from glamorous rebellion to social exile. Willie Nelson, once the eternal outlaw troubadour, suddenly has the posture of a man who’s seen too many sunrises. And the moon landing—once the defining miracle of human ambition—now sits in the attic with the other dusty trophies we don’t bother to polish.

Then there’s the postage stamp, that tiny square of national identity and personal intention. Once it meant: I thought of you, and I took the time. Now it’s a micro‑transaction that forces a moral audit. Are you worth sixty‑some cents. Am I. Is anyone.

And the Post Office—like so many institutions—seems to have followed the same tragic script: Raise prices. Shrink the soul. Act surprised when people drift away.

There’s a quiet ache in what you’re describing, Harvey. Not nostalgia exactly, but a recognition that the rituals that once slowed life down—letters, conversations, waiting for something to arrive—have been replaced by speed without meaning. The world didn’t just accelerate; it blurred.