The World Has Moved On, An Overview— January 20, 2026

THE DAILY UPDATE

It’s a quiet Tuesday morning in Foristell, Missourah, my hometown of the past several years. My drive to work was one of those in which you know you set out from your house, you know you arrived at a different place, but whatever happened on the way is something of a mystery. I know this is a neurological phenomenon, a thing that happens in the brain that basically puts it on a safe form of autopilot to allow it to think other thoughts while doing the routine. Not that driving in my neck of the woods should ever be considered routine, especially with the abundance of construction going on. But I’m just going to assume I didn’t cause any pileups or run over anyone’s dog and move on with my day, m’kay?

I was on autopilot because I was, indeed, doing other thinking, deep thinking. I kept coming back to Roland. For those who have read Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series, they’ll know who I’m talking about. Roland is a gunslinger, the last gunslinger, in fact, and the multi-book series delves into a world that has moved on. That was the phrase I kept thinking about this morning: The World Has Moved On.

On my left arm is tattooed another phrase from that book series: “Go then. There are other worlds than these.” This, I have long believed and am more certain of than ever. There was a Before, there will be an After, and there exists right now many Others. I’m not going to delve into that here. It’s a topic for another day. But it’s something equally true as the fact that The World Has Moved On.

I am not alone in feeling this, I am sure, and I know for a fact that this is not a new feeling. I’m pretty sure every generation at some point realizes that the world it knew and was comfortable with has disappeared. I imagine this is more of a First World phenomenon than, say, one experienced by my little African buddy in Burkina Faso. Technology is the thing that drives this whole feeling, I believe, and the less technology you have, the less quickly the world moves on. Still, it does move on for everyone at some point, I imagine.

On my drive, I started to think about all the ways the world has moved on for me. I realized immediately that the list I was forming was most definitely making me sound like an old man. Again, every generation rues the progress that has made what it was comfortable with obsolete or historic. I also realized that some of these things from which the world has moved on still exist (malls, magazines, the evening news, etc.) but they certainly aren’t what they once were and they equally certainly don’t hold the same spot in the fabric of society.

The whole concept of the world moving on is, at its essence, nostalgia — a longing for what was compared to what is. In so many ways, it’s good that the world moves on. We don’t put leeches on people in most situations anymore to cure them of blood-borne diseases. That’s a good thing. We don’t lock women in insane asylums because they openly express thoughts and feelings. That’s a good thing. We don’t lynch people for being a darker hue at the same rate as we used to. Another good thing.

But we are, I believe, fundamentally broken as a society. As I wrote, maybe it’s not the entire world that has moved on, or maybe it’s just that our part of the world is moving on at a faster pace than the rest of it. But we here in Muricah have moved on in a way that is bad … unhealthy … dangerous … a way that bears so many signs of every empire that has declined and faded into obscurity over the course of time. And we’re doing it all knowing it’s bad, unhealthy, and dangerous without pausing long enough to say “Let’s go back.”

Because truthfully, you can’t go back. Once you have GPS-powered navigation on a screen in your car, can you really go back to paper maps? Of course you can. But you won’t. Why would you? Why would you even think the gas station attendant could help you find your way if you got lost being foolish enough not to use the device in your pocket? He or she has lost that superpower and that place in society.

You can’t unring a bell, the horse is already out of the barn, a done bun can’t be undone … pick your saying. They all apply here.

And so.

What I intend to do is chronicle how the world has moved on — or, at least, how my world has moved on. In doing so, I’m hoping I can find ways to go back, to reverse course, to recapture the things I seem to be pining for, and maybe I’ll inspire you to do that too. I have no grand thoughts that I actually will do either, mind you. When Roland said “The world has moved on,” he wasn’t talking about a reversable condition, and neither am I. To use another saying, we’ve made our bed; now we have to lie in it.

So maybe all that I’m attempting to do is capture the essence of the way the world was before it moved on, to relive some of the stories of that world and chronicle them so others can see how things were compared to how things are. I’m not saying they were better then. But I’m not not saying that, either.

Below are some possible topics. If you have any, feel free to email me. Johnagliata@gmail.com I’d love to hear how your world has moved on.

My list so far: