Sometimes I wonder if our world today, in an effort to make everything smarter/ faster/ easier/ better, is actually making everyone and everything dumber/ slower/ harder/ worse. Not to mention fatter.
And the irony of that statement is that my frustration stems from a certain, shall we say, laziness when it comes to maintaining my life electronically.
Is this real life?
I think I'm a pretty connected person. I have an iPhone, a work PC, a home PC, a work laptop, and a personal laptop. But I hate maintaining any all of them, and so sometimes... I don't. I haven't synched my iPad in probably an entire year. I never update my computer when that little screen pops up letting me know that I should. I'm not even sure I should say I have a personal laptop, because that sucker's battery died in March and hasn't been replaced yet. My work laptop is doing double duty right now.
This tendency drives my tech-y husband and brothers crazy. Why don't I want the new iPhone operating system installed? Why don't I update appropriately? WHY???
I don't know. I blame my dad, who is as un-tech-y as they come. I think I've inherited a severe strain of tech malaise. It's not that I don't want them to be updated, I just don't think it's worth the (very minimal) effort to do it. I should probably just own a flip phone and a lot of legal pads, because I would be happy as a clam with good ol' SMS, phone conversations, and real, live letters.
It will be a truly sad day if the Postal Service goes under. I even have a letter opener.
Ah, yes. Here I am.
Often, I put on my trusty rose-colored glasses and remember the good old days. Well, I've only been alive since 1987, so I suppose I imagine the good old days. The days of candles and lanterns and stage-coaches and sleighs. Of correspondence, which is such a lovely word. Of dance cards and courting and the art of homemaking.
But then the little practical voice in my head -- a very frustrated, fruitless presence continually drowning in a sea of sentimentality and frantically nodding in agreement with nearly everything Kyle says -- whispers "Um, you like electricity. You enjoy a hot shower and a warm house. It's probably a lot less treacherous traveling up Mount Washington in an SUV than it would be in a dinky sleigh. And don't even get me started on your fear of fire. What, the girl who shrinks from sparklers wants to depend on candles and lanterns for light and warmth? Riiiiiiight."
The little voice and I aren't always on good terms, but when he's right, he's right. And I don't mean "he" as in Kyle, I mean "he" as in my practical voice, who I like to think of as a less earnest sort of Jiminy Cricket. A curmudgeonly conscience. Kyle is just the back-up singer shooting me exasperated looks.
Look very closely. Horribly Photoshopped image thanks to this and this.
I still think I could do without all these modern inconveniences. I worry about real books and newspapers and magazines. I try to imagine what it will be like in the future, when people will probably watch the daily news in their own brains. It all sort of grosses me out.
But I guess I'll concede my appreciation for electricity. I may or may not still plan to ride in a sleigh at some point this Christmas season, though.
You should come back for photo evidence, so you can see my husband gallavanting in the snow, iPhone in hand.