saving time
Even down here in the bucolic nettle fields of the pastoral South End, our laid back, porch-rocking, garden hoeing pace is definitely picking up speed. More and more satellites are whizzing through all that space junk overhead to bring us faster weather reports, more TV channels, instant text messaging and close-up photos of the rocker on the porch from Google Earth we don’t have so much time to sit in anymore. Our attention spans now aren’t long enough to make it through the Stanwoodopolis Weekly Gazette so we check Yahoo headlines on the computer that rockets in on DSL. If you’re younger than 30, you never looked at a newspaper in your whole life. Why bother, you can get the only news you’re really interested in on Facebook, what your ‘friends’ are doing, news enough, I guess, these days.
Our old shack has its share of 21st century gizmoes. Microwave oven, digital telephone answering machine, ma’s nano-pod, two computers (his and hers) and all the peripherals right down to a podcast microphone. We got lazerized CD players, DVD players, a remote controlled TV antenna, digital alarm clocks, electric guitars. We look like the Jetsons without the robot maid. And that’s on back order from Amazon….
This is all the stuff advertised as Time-Saving Devices back when. Help do your chores more efficiently. Give you leisure time galore. Free you to live your dream. Be your True Self, not a slave to the menial tasking days. Right…
Maybe I’m too old and too cynical. Maybe Facebook updating IS your true self. Maybe bad TV IS the dream. Maybe what we wanted all along was something to keep us busy, keep us constantly entertained, keep us from sitting too long on the rocker contemplating the front yard that needs mowing. The world is smaller and definitely accelerating. The question I got, rocking to an older rhythm, is what the hell was the point of saving time if everything got speeded up so fast all our free time is gone? Well, I could waste more time on this, but I have to hurry up and update this blogsite.
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