John Henry, Character in American Folklore

Growing up in the 1960s, one of my children's books was a restatement of the legend of John Henry, steel-driving man on the American railroads of the 1800s, as these were built to supplement and partly replace the use of horses as a mode of transport. John Henry was a mighty man swinging the hammer, driving those steel stakes that held the rails in place. One day, the invention of a steam engine that could mechanically drive in these rail stakes arrived on the scene where John Henry and his fellows worked. A contest between the machine and John Henry was arranged and John Henry outperformed the machine, winning the race, completing his assigned steel-driving before the machine finished its allotted task. Unfortunately, John Henry died, with his hammer in his hands, in the midst of this victory. This story engendered within my breast profound sympathy and sorrow for John Henry and his loss of life. I've never forgotten the legend of John Henry and as a fan of science fiction, have often noted the theme of man versus machine in that genre of literature. Now, as an old man working as a clerk at a major shipping firm, I've learned that a device will soon replace human labelling of packages as they whiz by on the conveyor belts. I guess I'll have to find another job or some other task to do within the company. May God help me. I've realized that such an ingenious device was coming, probably inevitable. Now, I face it. The future, what will be man's place in the future? Time, the schema of past-present-future which encompasses our lives, do we really understand it? Humanity measures time, but isn't time measuring us?