not all who wander are lost
As I took Emerson (our dog) out for his morning “duties” I was surprised to walk out into the first snow of the season. It’s not often we get snow in November these days. I’m sure it will all melt this afternoon as temperatures rise above freezing…but none-the-less, it’s a treat to walk out into the season’s first snowfall.
So, my 19 month old son received his first credit card offer today. Many things crossed my mind as I struggled with myself over the option of actually filling it out for him. The biggest concern was their (lack of any) screening process. Can you imagine the amount of paper we could save, the fuel for carting all the junk mail and time we all spend sorting through it if companies would only target their mailings to those that are likely to be interested and (my choice) if companies had to get an opt-in confirmation before bombarding you with junk mail.
Al I could think was: unbelievable. As long as there is money to be made there will be no move to protect our privacy or the environment.
And with that thought I switch to wishing everyone a happy and safe Thanksgiving holiday. In this time of economic unrest and uncertainty we should all take a moment to reflect on those things we do have in our lives that are constant & priceless.
Technology surrounds us. It has infiltrated almost every aspect of our lives. I sometimes wonder if being so reliant on technology is good for us. The farther we remove ourselves from the world that sustains us…that is to say, the more removed we are from mother earth the less in touch with our humanity we become. I’m convinced that that is not healthy. In fact, it’s a frightening thought to consider that the technology we develop is progressing faster than we can fully comprehend it’s effect on us and the world we live in.
I’m no luddite. Far from it. In addition to being a musician I spend my days as a technology consultant/interactive strategist & developer. I use technology everyday. I am fascinated by technology. But, more and more I find that true clarity only comes to me when I step away from the cacophony of technology and listen to the sounds of life.
And to that, I am proud to say that I sometimes like to sit in a candlelit room, play acoustic guitar and laugh maniacally at the gods of electricity.
As you can tell, I’ve made some changes to the site layout, moving my blog to a secondary page and adding a welcome page. I felt like it was time for a change.
The funny thing about change – we avoid it when we are complacent and we seek it out when we’re unhappy. For me, I just felt like I had lost my focus. All this technology in my life makes me feel like a different person that I had always thought I was.
But, are we ever who we think we are?
I just spent the better part of my morning cleaning up a family member’s Dell laptop and had one thought to sum up the experience “why to people subject themselves to Windows.”
I am, admittedly, a Mac user, but I did my fair share of Windows, UNIX & UNIX-like OSes back in the day (programming in Pascal on VAX/VMS, for instance). I simply refuse to wrestle with a tool to get it to perform a task it was built to perform – my Mac seems to understand that why can’t Microsoft figure it out?
I feel sorry for people who have to put up with the Microsoft garbage on a daily basis. It’s cumbersome and counter intuitive…that being said – I guess it’s better them than me.
It simply goes to reinforce an old joke I like to use when I sit at someone’s computer to “fix it” for them: “oh, I see what the problem is…you installed Windows on this thing”.