Wednesday, November 11, 2009

A long time ago, seems like a different life, now, my goal was to live in Forks and ride my horse to my job at the local radio station. I was a camp counselor at the time at Camp Sealth, now just across the Puget Sound from where I work at Gig Harbor High. Even back then I was torn between loving primitive, natural things and technology. Ah, technology! How you’ve changed. Riding home from the movie tonight we had to stop at a red light by a Radio Shack, now just “The Shack.” There had been a radio shack in the movie, Amelia. An aside about the film: Hilary Swank will not be winning as Oscar for it. Not many radios being sold in Radio Shack these days I don’t suppose. How things change. CenturyTel is now CenturyLink, I noticed. Not too long ago, in Cheney, I had a party line as my only phone. Now we connect by land lines, cell phones, Blackberry devices and computers via wi-fi and Skype. Communication is instantaneous and ubiquitous. Whereas a letter might have taken weeks to travel, we can now send our words immediately. Science fiction is real.

We must know so much more about each other now. We are constantly in touch with our friends and acquaintance, right? Wait, let me navigate away for a second and check…

I have another new follower on Twitter, even though I don’t tweet hardly at all. My dad has forwarded another uber-conservative rant, and several newspapers have updated me. Amazon is letting me know that one of the authors whose books I have bought will be publishing a new one, etc., and two of my co-workers are currently logged in to their facebook accounts. I could click on chat and talk to them. I could also just pick up the phone and call them. In actuality, I feel as though I have already made a connection. I fertilized their farms on Farmville AND Farm Town. Our friendship is so much stronger now. There: I just sent them a turkey. Maybe they’ll gift one back to me. I especially hope they’ll send me a red maple tree, otherwise they’re too expensive. I may also have some Farkle chips waiting for me.

Walking through the halls of the high school, the students have their noses in a tiny keyboard, texting each other. It’s what passes for conversation. They’ll sit next to each other, never speaking, while they send cryptic alphabet soup through the ether. Well, they can’t talk, they’ve got earbuds plunged into their ears forcing digital music deep inside. I love music; I used to listen to more music, before it got so convenient. I have an iPod, Bose headphones, Skullcandy earbuds, even a sound dock. More and more I want to hear real sounds, people, wind, birds, breathing, paper shuffling. There’s music in those sounds, too.
I guess I’m having connectivity issues, besides having my network cable cut because I wasn’t home and SOMEBODY didn’t know where that wire went. No, my issues are that I’m too connected and I don’t know whether to reject it or not. I don’t know whether I want to ride a horse or buy one for my digital farm.
Eh! I’ve got to hurry and post this on Blogspot; My TV show is starting.

1 comment:

Stephanie Frieze said...

It is a source of conflict to me that on the one hand I long for a simpler life (one in Ilwaco vs Forks and my husband wants to have a show on the local community radio station)and how much I enjoy technology. I don't have an iphone like my oldest son, but I do like my laptop. Striking the balance between simplicity and technology is tricky and I'm still fumbling my way. If I could retire I'd have more time to figure it out. :-)