Turning Back the Clock
I
shared a memory with a friend recently, on Facebook. It was a photo of us 20
years ago that evoked a feeling of shared joy. But she also
commented that she'd like to "turn back the clock".
That
started me thinking about how life would be, even if we turned the
clock back 10 years, to pre FB. How
might we be using these hours in a way that nurtures us more deeply?
The time that social media has snatched from us?
And
who would we be without our technology? Michael Harris, in his book
“The End of Absence” suggests that soon enough people will
struggle to remember life before the Internet.
Would
we be more engaged in our local community? Be more able to churn out
that book, or paint more pictures?
So
how do we extract ourselves, even a little, for fear of losing our
seemingly community of 'friends'. Many would have withdrawal
symptoms. The longest offline time for me was a week.
Michael
goes on to say "And today’s rarest commodity is the chance to
be alone with your own thoughts". Thankfully I still make time
for a lot of that. He urges us to look up from our screens and to
remain awake to what came before. What did it feel like then? And
this same topic is what I brought up with another friend recently. I
expressed wanting to return to a time when I wasn’t plugged in (I wanted a few days to be free of my Smartphone). This time was only 16 years ago, in 2000. Yes, I needed to remember what
it felt like then!
The days of only having a landline.
Michael
says that "if you were born before 1985, you are one of the last
people, the last generation on Earth who will have known a
pre-digital world. Who will know the difference between Before and
After."
One
of my loves is to capture the natural world on camera - wanted
to be a photographer once - so the other day when I had the impulse
to stop my car on a country road, and capture the roadside pinkish
grass that danced in the wind, I didn't, as I heard the words "who
wants to see your grass pictures?!" This prompted me to think
about why people share so many images of what they are
doing, and who they are with. I wanted to go deeper into the Why?
Prior
to Mobile phone cameras, when we printed out our photos from our cameras, we usually only shared images of the
birth of a baby, a wedding, or holidays. And when people did I would
hastingly bypass the landscape ones as I found them a little boring.
I wanted to see people in the images. But now, when I see a beautiful
sunset or field of flowers on FB, I am in awe.
So
what has changed?
Could
it be that in an increasing digitised world, though it might appear
we connect to so many virtual friends, make a comment here and there,
or have a virtual conversation, still our soul is crying out for a
deeper, day to day, real life experience where we are met and heard
in the presence of another soul? And in an attempt to feel even the
slightest of soul time, the only way is sharing what moves us,
online, whether it's a selfie, a scene, or something one is eating. I drove the rest of the way home
feeling more at peace as to why I love to share what moves me, or
inspires me, in images.
Thankfully
I stopped using Instagram, and found it hard to learn how to Tweet! There's two techno bits I don't have to concern myself with anymore.
Michael Harris says we have formed a deep intimacy with
our gadgets, much like a lover, and because of the need to connect
with others, our technologies are good at providing this intimacy.
Who
would love to turn the clock back to the days of receiving and
sending letters and birthday cards? I tend to prefer the paper variety of correspondence. Even though we spoke on the phone weekly, Mum and I would still send each other a letter, sometimes with enclosures. Reading these letters was a treasured moment of my week.
There is now no need to wait for
the postie til 2 or 3 in the afternoon when we have instant contact
with 'friends' all over the world. I would hazard a guess it's one of
the first things most people do in the morning, checking into FB.
Meeting
'Wonder Woman' at a Design Market on the weekend took me back in
time. On her stall she was selling beautiful, colorful,
hand-crocheted shawls and blankets. She told me she also had a
full-time job when I inquired as to how she had the energy to crochet
all these goods. And she has four children!
I forgot to ask her for
her FB page! Perhaps she hasn't the time to have one.
Returning
now to we Elders in wanting to turn the clock back.
Albeit
technology has slowly crept into our lives, it has also taught us new
skills, and connected us up with a wide range of people.
And though it's possibly caused us to be more sedentary, the benefits
of slowing down and reflecting on our lives, might counter any
negatives.
So why would we want to turn back the clock, to the 'old days' when we can write about a lifetime of memories, plus remember all the selves we
have been, or imagined our selves to have been? And let's
not even contemplate any baggage we've held onto. Hopefully most of
us have lost it somewhere in our travels!
On reflection, perhaps we have the best of both worlds.
Comments
Post a Comment