Sunday, February 18, 2007

I Am Getting Old - Part Two

I know that I am getting old because cell phones are driving me crazy. I bought one of those pay as you go phones and I have yet to figure out how to use it. One of the biggest problems is my fingers. They don’t work to well anymore and are almost to big to navigate the keypad to change settings, see messages, set ring tones and all the other things you can do. Speaking of ring tones, I finally got the phone set to vibrate rather than ring. When it did ring, by time I figured out that is was the phone, the caller had hung up. I decided if I had it on vibrate, then when I felt it “shaking” or saw it "jumping" around on the desk, I would know a call was incoming.

Can you imagine what it would have been like when you were growing up (if you are my age now which is, well lets just say I am over 50 and leave it at that) if there had been email, the Internet and cell phones. Imagine how many visits to other people’s homes at holidays you would have missed. Think of how many letters, cards, thank you notes you would not have written by hand for that personal touch. Think how nice it would be to go to a restaurant, to the grocery store, the drug store, or any other place you can think of and not hear or see someone talking on a cell phone. Think how nice it would be if people did not drive and talk on their cell phone at the same time. Think of the accidents that we could prevent if we did not “talk and drive”. Think of the people who would not have to dodge cars in the parking lot while people “talk and drive”. I would compare “talk and drive” to “drink and drive” and I do not condone either. Have you ever driven behind a person talking on a cell phone? It appears to me that they drive much the same way as the person drives drunk. Sometimes, and I hate to say this, but their driving is worse than the driver who is drunk.

Are we in such a hurry, that we cannot wait until we reach home to talk to people. What do people talk about that much? Think of the silence there must be in their homes, because they have nothing left to say when they are face to face with another person. Think about the personal interaction with other people that we miss. Seeing their reactions to what we say, seeing the smile on their face at our words. Has the art of conversation been lost forever?

Our lives have become so impersonal in this day and time. It seems to me that this may be the reason people treat each other as if they do not matter. How we as a society have become immune to the way human beings are discarded as if they were garbage. How we look the other way to avoid the violence and ugliness in the world. We have lost the personal connection with others. Then we have the audacity to ask, what is wrong with this world today?


Enough of this serious talk, it is time to move on to the next topic. My childhood, even though it was many years ago, has been on my mind lately. So I think I will write about the games we played when I was a child.

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