Could it be possible, that with so many modern conveniences and instant access to information, media, technology and more, that we are actually doing less and less and we seem lethargic and bored? Is the state of our children, of the last generation, a warning sign of trouble ahead? I know it’s something that I am wrestling with so deeply, that it’s really causing me to wonder if there’s something wrong with me. Let me explain.
The last twenty years of my life, mainly as a mother and self employed graphic artist, some as a wife, have been spent BUSY. Busy, busy, busy. It just never seemed there was enough time to get everything done. Of course, I was the Queen of taking on too much… but still, there seemed to always be a To-Do list a mile long and that didn’t include the “Leisure Time List” either. Just always either clients with needs, children with needs, house with needs, pets with needs, personal needs and so on. And it always seemed that we didn’t do much though, that “down” time was usually wasted on TV and movies, surfing the web and playing video games. It was a vicious cycle. We were always TOO BUSY and then when we managed to scratch out a bit of time, we were sucking on the teat of technology and just living vicariously through it.
Do you know what I miss most? Children outside on the neighborhood street, playing. Why is it that you rarely see that anymore? I drive past beautiful neighborhoods and you will hardly EVER see a child outside, playing, hanging with other kids, dogs wandering about. We did away with neighborhood dog play groups when we introduced strict leash laws and made most of our animals neurotic messes when they see another dog… but it’s the kid thing that bothers me most. They’re still around, I see them in the early morning light when they board the bus for school. But they dash in the beast and disappear. And they return and dash back into their big beautiful climate controlled homes to that electronic momma instead… It’s no wonder that our society as a whole is overweight and out of shape. I know, myself and my daughters are no shining pictures of slim, trim, muscular health. It’s just such a shame.
On of the things that I’ve noticed in myself over the last year or so, is this feeling of “been there, done that” merely from reading blogs and informational websites, or watching some How-To show on TV… it’s like the information feed is so complete, I already feel accomplished enough to lay a brick patio garden down, or visit some exotic local and hunt emeralds or create a beautiful rack of lamb roast with complete fixings of recipes I can’t even pronounce. Even if some craft or such catches my eye, and I actually get the materials to give it a try, I gear up and then maybe make one thing, and I’m done. It’s so much easier and cleaner to just watch or read about it then to actually DO IT!
I think that is really what drove me to make some SERIOUS changes in my life about three years ago… buying this old Moby and then two years ago, starting this blog. I just had to break that cycle! And start DOING instead of just going through the motions in my head. I also seriously began to take on my to-do list, and as many of you know, devoted myself to my card system of organizing all that busy work.
We’re done a ton of things hands on… built all our garden beds, rehabbed the whole Moby, made food from scratch, canned, quilted, sewed, crafted, and worked our butts off to build our home business to a point where we have a nice, comfortable and content little life.
Perhaps a little toooo content.
The last few months, I’ve worked very hard to get down to my personal goal of 10 cards or less in my to-do deck. And I’m there. Sometimes its 8 cards, sometimes its 11 or 12, but then back down to 7. 7 is the least number I’ve reached and those are all big projects that I’ve yet to tackle. Mostly work related, but one or two are fun/craft/rehab related. The little day to day chores that crop up, they are easily handled within an hour. And the rest of the day is left to working on a big project or worse, sucking the electronic teat. Yep, it really seems that since we’ve gotten a real handle on chores, money, spending, working and all, we’re falling into the trap and spending a great amount of time just mindlessly surfing and watching videos and just doing that whole mind-feed experiences thing again! AGH!!!!!
We’re reached a point that all the ‘fires’ are put out. Rent is paid, bills caught up, pantry full, not much to do outdoors with the cold and 17 inches of snow… We’re not big outdoor sports gals, nor do we travel much. We’re homebodies, for sure, but I dunno, cabin fever is not a problem, just hook into the web and poof! You’re in some hot location watching other people experience building a missionary school for kids in Peru and enjoying the whole feel good experience as if it were your own. Heck, some of these shows are so good, you feel the whole wave of emotions and tears when the little children happily play in the new clean water from that well you helped dig… er, ah, that they dug and you watched. Yeah.
Heck, that’s all Facebook is… it’s like a big peek into everyone else’s windows to see what they are doing. Heck, they even through open the windows and give you complete details and pictures! Wow! Little Ethan’s birthday party was so much fun, I’m so glad I got a chance to be there too! And oh, doesn’t Bethany look beautiful in her prom dress and oh! Hey! The Docmans are going to Florida, wow! Can’t wait for the play by play commentary of the trip by mobile phone uploads! You even get to experience their real life drama when Great Aunt Rosie passes away or they’re feeling blue/angry/upset and post their raw emotions in their status updates. It’s a little weird… yet, even myself, you get addicted to it, like staring at a bad traffic accident, you just gotta watch. And you just gotta check in, a lot. Several times a day. You have to, or you might miss something. Someone else’s important things. It’s just getting too weird.
Information overload leads to that sense of overwhelm that you just can’t do it all, be it all, work it all, or learn it all. Sometimes I even get angry when I read comments left on popular blogs that are all filled with worry and fear that you might do something wrong or not up to date with the LATEST bit of information, so you probably shouldn’t do it at all. We all do it. We offer up our opinions and own speculation as to said person’s post and so often it’s with a negative slant towards how it might not be the right way. You know, so and so said that in Utah they do it this way and it’s just not green to do that anymore, or not humane or not in compliance with the World Summit Gathering of 2009 on said topic, which, of course, I watched on Youtube so I’m in the know now…..
Geez, people… this is getting out of control. It’s life by committee and it’s shared experiences in media = reality. Don’t even get me started on the bizarre popularity of all these “Reality”shows and living the life of other peoples for a day or a week and suddenly you’re a career pro. Yeah right.
And there is this alarming trend in book publishing lately… these “I spent a year doing this fairly normal thing and now I’m going to write wittily about it” books. I have read quite a few and I’ve decided, no more. I get done and I think. Hmmm. Wow, that dude just spend a year making a garden in his backyard and tried to cram every gardening/urban homesteading thing into it and now he’s done and he’s going to go back to his old cable tv/wi-fi/Starbucks twice a day world and feel like he did something AMAZING that year of gardening.
For gosh sakes, tons of people do that year after year and never write books about it, or heck even have a blog or anything, and it USED to be a normal thing. Now it’s a novelty. And we read about it and we sigh at the end and think, wow, what an amazing experience. I’m so glad to have shared it with them, and now I can check that off my list as done! Yah!
Hmmm… where am I going with this. My own experience is leading me to think that I need to start weaning myself from the technology teat. I need to put myself in a separate pasture and start to control my access to it 24/7. I noticed that last week, when I was very sick with a bad cold, I would get out of bed to go visit the little girl’s room, refill my juice glass, take some meds and then check my email, and my Facebook and of course try to read a few blogs and check my bank account and then…. Shesh. Every time. And the weird thing? Most of the time, nothing much had changed. And then I would find myself commenting on people’s status updates no matter how mundane, so that when I checked back in a few hours, I could keep track of their trip to the mall or snow shoveling, or maybe their latest funny commercial they found on YouTube and reposted on their status. I mean, that’s really important you know. Really. Oh my gosh…
Shoot, even today! I’ve been up since 9 am and it’s now noon and I’m still on the computer doing all sorts of things AND if left unchecked, I think I could twitter away another couple hours! (Oh don’t get me going on Twitter… hahaha)
I hope so much that we get our farm soon. Very soon. The sooner the better. The farm will DEMAND our presence. It WILL need us to tend it and to be outside and to be involved personally and I can’t wait. We need something to wean us off this electronic momma. We need to stop looking up feel-good experiences of others and start living them ourselves! I need to start TURNING off the computer when I’m not using it, to save money and to also disconnect myself a bit from this constant thirst for it’s pale, dreary milk replacer for real life. And it doesn’t mean I have to never touch the beast again, never cuddle against her warm monitor glow of a flank and feed, I just need to get a little air. A little REAL sunshine, and some cold wind of winter against my face and chilling my toes. I need to CRAFT and to MAKE and to try some new things, make and eat some real foods… not just experience them vicariously through some perky kitchen queen or hobby diva.
So I think, I’m done for most of the day. The computer is getting turned off. Going to spend the day putzing and cleaning my house. With me being sick most of last week, and now Jessy is feeling under the weather, the place could use a little extra TLC and clutter control. And I think I’m going to make some cookies with Maggie. Maybe even try our new grinder we got a month ago and make some homemade peanut butter. And I’m going to start that cool wool rug idea I have in my head with my new beautiful lap frame that Santa brought me and I still haven’t used!
I’ll check in later tonight, I know I’ll have to or my brain will probably explode or something dreadful like that. Just like that calf lowing and fretting when he can’t reach his momma, I would be inconsolable if I couldn’t have my computer fix. And since I make my living off it, I’ll have to have it on a good deal during the week. But I really think I need to make sure that when it’s on, I’m using is a little more deliberately. And not so aimlessly. And not as needy as I think I’ve become on it. A little “less is more” might be in order. And maybe I can be an example to my plugged in children as well. Maybe?
.
Pin It
You raise some really good points in your article Sherri. It’s a fine line for sure. I was actually accused of being “anti-social” a year or so ago. My sister worried I was becoming a hermit. More like I was on a strict budget and travel in my truck at 14 mpg to do much was out of the question. She suggested Facebook and begged me to at least post updates on the kids and such as she worried I was becoming to inward/depressed. Looking back it wasn’t inward it was just me focusing on what felt good and keeping things SIMPLE. I stopped worrying about answering my cell phone instantly for people (that ticked half my friends off by the way) and did more things outside in my yard, yadda yadda. The Facebook thing does get weird and as much as I love seeing the postings from my family and friends that I don’t get to see very often it is easy to get sucked in and realize that several hours half passed by. Now with the Android phones, Iphones and Ipads, free wifi just about everywhere it’s getting to be a truly different world out there and I worry for my kids at balancing it. Heck I am 43 and I have a hard time, how do I expect a tween or teenager to do better? I really enjoyed your post and it hit home with me to keep a keen eye on the issue in my own home even more so. For me half the battle is being brave enough to admit there is a problem or addiction. The good part is……it’s a huge step in the right direction to fixing it
Hat’s off to you for saying what many people think but don’t want to change in there lives. I might also add that the more I did away from the computer and out and about the more I did not care what anyone else thought of me and what I was doing. I would get so caught up in the happiness of going forward that I didn’t worry about the naysayers and lazy buns still sitting at home nitpicking everything about everybody else. That has stayed with me on many a bad day and helped me. Thanks for your candid post and insight.
Amen, Sherri. You are such a gifted writer. I totally relate to everything you wrote. Thank you.
Agreat big amen to everything you just said. I am going to start limiting my computer use to a few days a week instead if daily….er several times a day as you said. I am so much other good things I could be doing instead. Its very addicting is what it is. Heres to making some changes.
In 1968, seven years after the invention of the Integrated Circuit, one of Intel’s co-founder’s, Gordon Moore predicted that technology would double approximately every 1-2 years. That prediction has been amazingly accurate, even today. It became known as Moore’s Law.
When I worked for Intel, it became apparent to me the way humans were changing in relation to technological advancement. I call it Grae’s Addendum to Moore’s Law and it goes like this: “Human patience decreases at a rate inversely proportional to the increased speed of technology.” We have come to expect instant gratification. I remember when I first started working at Intel, to save a small design I was working on would take up to an hour. Larger designs would take hours and we would typically not save until we went home for the day. When I left Intel over 11 years later, much larger designs were being saved in a matter of minutes if not seconds. I’ve been on the phone with people who had to look up something on their computer and apologized when the information took a few seconds to load.
After the first cell phone call was made in 1973, those big-as-a-brick first cell phones became a social status piece. Only the very affluent could afford them. But as technology improved and more functionality could be placed in a smaller and smaller package, cell phones became as ubiquitous as wrist watches. And phone etiquette disappeared. There was a time that talking on the phone when there were people around was considered rude. It used to be that when you saw someone talking to themselves in public, you suspected the individual was a little “disturbed”. With the advent of Bluetooth, you don’t know if they are on their phone or off their meds.
But the way I see people stroking and petting their smart phones, it… well, creeps me out a bit. I envision Smeagol hissing, “We wantsss it, we needsss it. Must have the precioussss.” It’s changed our social interactions as well. We used to talk to people, now we find it much easier to send a text. We have reduced our communication to 140 characters or less. With the ubiquitous-ness of social media we have become a society of electronic voyeurists.
I’ve reduced my cell phone usage to the point that we replaced our phones with a pay-as-you-go phone. No contract and we only pay for the minutes we use. And we avoid answering it in public, especially when we are involved in a transaction with a person face-to-face. It’s funny to see the reaction of people we are talking to when they hear our cell phone start to ring and we don’t answer it. I’m not going to say that I will never have a smart phone. We may get one for our business if we ever decide to accept credit/ATM cards as the apps are cheaper than the traditional electronic transaction hardware and services. But the benefits will have to out weigh the detriments. And to us being “plugged-in” all the time is a detriment.