OK, I guess technology is cool, even though I resist new ipods and cell phones and macs with stubborn snobbery.
Being in Maui, thousands of miles from most of the people I love, has made me realize how technology enables me to stay easily connected to anyone anywhere. Using Skype, I can talk with Martha in Amsterdam as clearly (and as cost-free) as if she was sitting next to me. I can video chat on gmail with Isaac and talk to him on the phone at the same time. I can email, IM, write on walls, read blogs, carry a phone in my pocket...and those are just the basics. Being part of this mobile generation doesn't make me less fascinated by it, how far we've come so fast, how much more accessible we've made the world. At the same time, I never want to get so caught up in new things that I lose the beauty of the "old." I want to keep the patience of waiting for a letter, the uncluttered silence of taking time away from cell phones or internet, the yellowed pages of my favorite book.
3 comments:
hey friend! first, I need to say...I read your blog all the time and yet am really bad about emailing you personally. I apologize.
second, I second your thoughts (wah! untintended. and saying "wah" is this new thing I do. when you come back to MN, I'll demonstrate).
I have been thinking a lot lately about growing old. Specifically about what it feels like to be 70 or older now...and how very foreign the world must look to people of that age, but not even just in reference to being 70 in 2009...it's sort of eerie (right word) to think of just being 70 ever...and having all these mainstays replaced with the newer and the better...and you...are still created by and familiar with those things of old...
anyway...it's all a little startling to ponder the idea of aging...or just time and our tendency to think linearly about it (you know, now this has passed, and this has come)...instead of appreciating all things time has given us, even those things from long ago, as often as possible. (like writing letters)
I'm rambling. It's hard to explain. It's just that I heard today, on NPR, a 90 year old lady named Elsie play "What a Friend We Have in Jesus", one finger at a time, on her little keyboard she keeps in her nursing home room. And it sparked all sorts of nostalgia that doesn't actually belong to me.
to clarify, I meant: "(right word?)".
yes, that question mark is key. :)
yay waiting for letters!
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