March 10, 2010
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The Daily News
1 I had the best thing happen yesterday.
2 First thing in the morning the garage door spring broke, so I couldn’t get a car out of the garage.
3 I got to school and had a glorious day, culminating in the completion of my grading.
4 I got home, and my internet modem crashed, so I have no internet ‘til Friday.
5 The DVR also crashed.
6 The second I got home, three things that normally would have sent me over the edge all crashed down, and I just smiled.
7 Best thing, honestly.
8 Why would I say that?
9 Because I became disengaged from the insults of Facebook, the checking for e-mails from parents, or from wayward friends, the nightly fun of writing the DN, the blue-light insomnia that happens at 3 a.m. when I can’t sleep and I go online, and almost all things mundane and mechanical.
10 I suddenly realized that I could walk outside and look at the stars, or see visions in clouds, or feel the wind on my face.
11 I also realized that I could actually talk to people.
12 You know, it sounds a bit cliché, but we have become a nation of Twitterers, Aimsters, Facebookers, emailers, texters, cell-phonies, and all the rest, and we have lost the fine art of conversation, and of communication with other human beings. In some regard, we have learned that we can ignore, disregard, and even toss friends right out of our lives with virtual ease. Somewhere in all of this, we have gained so much, but in many other ways, we have lost our hearts, and perhaps we have lost our very souls as well.
13 Most of our daily interactions tend to be in short bursts, and how little time we spend talking over things, sharing, and getting into relevant, or even irreverent discourse anymore.
14 I’ve almost lost friends because of this, because people misinterpret things, and never think things through, or more importanlty, talk things along.
15 Turning off all the machines for a day or two can give us time for reflection, and time to think and allow our thoughts to become more clear and logical.
16 The very fact that I could walk across the hall and talk to a friend without asking permission to be a friend seems liberating these days.
17 How absurd! When you REALLY think about it, how utterly absurd!
18 Yet that’s the world that has been created for us, and into which many of us have now entered.
19 We begin to lose our own identities in that world.
20 I’ve been feeling that way for around a year now anyway, but it’s interesting when you are suddenly without all these “things” that make our lives so much better.
21 Logical things suddenly occur. Clarity of thought enters the thought processes, and many things that were unclear become crystal clear.
22 The grade I gave that kid WAS accurate, despite the parents telling me that the kid insists I must have lost twelve or thirteen assignments. Each marking period. Uh…no?
23 It’s interesting that the “loss” of all the electronic marvels seems to coincide with Daylight Saving Time this weekend.
24 I’m thinking of getting my hands off the computer and into some mud.
25 Or of picking up a guitar and finishing up some songs.
26 I may even look at the stars.
27 I may even look how they shine for you.
28 Peace.
~H~
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