I grew up in the 70s and 80s in a country which had persistently "high" inflation for most of that time (and price controls for some years) and more or less assumed that inflation was normal. I also learned that borrowing to invest in inflationary times could be a good way to make money (a lesson in the risks would come along in the late 1980s).
Today, inflation is very noticable - food, good wine, taxi fares, holidays, education, entertainment, insurance, utilities and accomodation* all cost noticably more than they did a few years ago. While some things are cheaper or not much changed - financial services, borrowing costs, appliances, clothing, bus/train/ferry, consumer electronics, cheap wine - our budget is weighted towards the items which are experiencing higher inflation so the effect is quite noticable (even allowing for changes in consumption patterns).
Items about inflation (especially food, transportation, health care and housing) get regular media coverage.
The local CPI hit 6.1% for the year to the end of January.
Inflation is something for the ER crowd to be concerned about - playing around with my numbers in FIRECalc shows that my success rate starts declining at a very rapid rate once the assumed rate of inflation starts getting past 5% pa. This is one of the reasons why I am light on bonds and have invested mostly in equities and real estate - over the longer term, I worry more about inflation than volatility.
* unlike the US, our local housing market is higher now than it was in 2007 - both in terms of capital values and rent levels