What a peculiar artifact.

A phone booth. Something we were all used to 20 years ago when you needed to make a call, obviously, but now? We look at one and think, “Wow, there was an interesting bit of history.”

I’m sure in another 20 years they’re just going to be a relic like rotary phones or fax machines. Even landlines are going to be something we’ll look at as a something from the past.

And yet, I can’t help but wonder what is going to be our future.

If we look at the technological advancements of history, taking a person from the 1400s and putting them into the 1700s wouldn’t be that much of a change. Sure, there would be some technological advancements, some border changes and even some ideologies that have come into fruition, but nothing that would make our time traveler spin their head.

However, take a person from the 1700s and put them into today’s age, and I’m pretty sure their brain would explode. Just the amount that has happened in 300 years is unthinkable. To project another 300 years would almost be ludicrous.

And yet here we have a phone booth at a gas station.

I remember the phone booth. I remember what it meant. But all it’s going to be is a memory–something to put in the museum to tell future generations this is where civilization has been.

I’m an optimist and I hope the phone booth is a reminder of a time when we were starting to get things right. I hope there’s a time we can look at it and say,

“I’m glad we do things so much better now and our world is much better off than it ever has been.”