Monday, July 12, 2021

thinking out loud:



Something Ms. Moon said, the other day:  how dependent we are on our electronics.  

We carry the phone with us now,  or  a laptop, or anything else that will allow us to keep in nearly constant contact with someone else.   It's as if a strange enemy has invaded us, taken over our homes, our lives, and our travels,  and we don't even realize that we've been colonized. 

I saw an ad, years ago,  that showed how electronic devices 'keep the family together".  Daddy was on the computer, Mother was using a laptop, the two boys were duking it on on their own devices, and sister was on her cellphone.  Not one of them was looking at anyone else, and all the communication was outside, not inside.  

This is not togetherness, this is apartness, bunched in one small room. 

If this had been an image from the 60s or 70s there would have been a TV (with  remote) with at least two people watching, two of the kids would be on the floor playing a board game, and one would be on the phone to her best friend.  

And the same scenario in the 40s, showing everyone gathered around a piano, singing while sister or Mom  played.  

Years ago I read a fascinating and very short story, (science fiction sometimes is chillingly accurate) about the last two people on earth, one man, one woman, separated by hundreds of miles,  but each with a computer,  and they could communicate.  At the end of the story,  they had just had a fight, and blocked each other permanently.  Now the last two people on earth were truly alone, only they didn't know it yet. 

Sometimes I think we're heading the same way.  


Thursday, July 1, 2021

Way too much excitement here

Lost the power last night and got to try out the generator.  We went out to eat, and drove home in one of the meanest thunderstorms I've ever seen.  (Generator got its first trial run,  I think Im in love with it)

We lost the electricity, and then the phones went out, and the internet.  (It reads like the beginning of a short horror story, doesn't it)

We just got it back a little while ago.  I read four Sue Grafton books today, lol. The weather people said the winds hit up to 70 mph in some places, I can believe it.   I think we've become too isolated from other people (not just us necessarily, but everyone),  with computers and cell phones and  internet connections.  When the connecting link  breaks, we're stuck, especially anyone  living outside of a town or city.