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Can we adapt to so many changes happening so fast?

Francisco Miraval

During the first two months of the current legislative session, Colorado legislators approved numerous new laws that will change the social landscape of this state. Many of those changes have been resisted for years, but now they are a reality and it will be difficult for many people to adapt to so many changes so fast. And Colorado is not the only state rapidly changing.

For example, after years of rejecting the recreational use of marijuana, Colorado voters approve it last November. Not to be outdone, legislators approved new laws about issues that have also been rejected numerous times in the past, such as in-state tuition for some undocumented college students.

And those are just two of the many changes. For example, legislators also approved civil unions (the law will take effect on May 1, 2013) and gun control laws, regulating the buying, selling, and using of fire arms. Gun control laws in Colorado were unthinkable just a short time ago.

Legislators are still debating even more changes, including repealing anti-immigrant laws in effect since 2006, the abolition of the death penalty, and mandatory breakfast after the beginning of the school day at every school with more than 70 percent of students who qualify for free or reduced-price meals.

And there is more. There are also talks about driving licenses for some undocumented immigrants and increasing the fines and taxes for gas and oil production companies. Colorado, thought to be until recently a fairly conservative state, is now very different. I am not saying that is something bad or negative. In fact, it was about time to update some obsolete laws that did not match current socially accepted behaviors.

I talk about Colorado because it is where I live and where I can see so many deep social changes happening at the same time, but I know that a similar process is also happing in many other states. In fact, I know it is happening all over the country and in many other countries, generating mixed reactions among those who cause, suffer, or witness those changes.

What is causing so many changes? There are, of course, many reasons and their analysis goes beyond the modest limits of this column. I will only say that the new generation (lead in many areas by Hispanics), together with new technologies and with globalization (bidirectional, by the way) seem to have created, promoted, and solidified the acceptance of a new social reality.

In ancient times (Heraclitus, for example), it was said that everything changes. And sometimes (Ovid), it is not clear who is moving the strings of all those changes or what we are changing into. Perhaps (Kafka, for example), we are changing into disgusting creatures. O perhaps, (Nietzsche), into trans-humans.

Regardless, the truth is changes are happening. They are undeniable, unstoppable, and overwhelming. We now live in a reality were the past is promptly forgotten, the presents seems foggy, and the future does not arrive as planned. However, that will not stop change.

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