Give and Take

2012. Already. Weren’t we all just freaking about the world ending when Y2K struck us down? Time is a sprightly little bugger. There are moments when it creeps like molasses though. Especially in this day of instant information. Our microwave culture demands everything instantaneously. Now. Now now. Nownownownow. NOW!

The other day I offered to help my neighbor scan in some old family pictures and letters to preserve the images digitally in case anything happened to them. There were some photographs of his Grandfather from the 1940’s, a letter from his Great Uncle written in the trenches during World War 2 and a postcard from 1907. Beautiful images and I was certainly happy to help protect them.

While the machine scanned them in, I found myself growing impatient. Why was it working so slowly? I didn’t have to be anywhere. We already ate dinner. Work was finished for the day. Why was I in such a rush? Back when I was a kid we couldn’t save the pictures in any way other than by keeping them in a frame or packed away nicely in some protective plastic. It took me a few minutes to breathe and recognize the miracle of this technology.

A few weeks ago we went out to the movies for my nephew’s birthday. The theater was in an unfamiliar part of Rhode Island. We drove on several highways and wound our way around side street after side street losing all sense of direction. Plus, we were following my in-laws in their car so we didn’t pay too much attention to where we were.

After the movie, we separated and were left on our own to find the way home. It was dark. Leaving the main road we instantly became turned around. Fortunately my wife received a Magellan GPS for her car during the holidays. Good old Ferdinand (as I like to call it) told us to make a left here, turn right past the bridge that’s under construction, then go straight for a quarter mile to the freeway heading home. So much better than the old days of flipping through Thomas Guides or fighting with the unwieldy folds of a map stuffed into the glove box.

I miss the smell of paper and wood while perusing through the stacks at my local bookstore or spending half a day walking around the record store with my friends searching for some new band we heard on the radio. I really do miss those things. However, it’s so great to sit in my chair, turn on this tiny metal machine, type in a few words and instantly be transported to websites where other like-minded people give me recommendations on artists and authors I might enjoy. I can type in another word or two and hear samples of music I wouldn't have been exposed to otherwise. I can read pages from a book written by an independently published author that changes my way of thinking forever and download instantly. I never have to leave my house

It’s the true definition of give and take. I have to learn to give up on a few of the older ways of being that I grew up with in order to take advantage of the new world we live in today. Will I ever stop missing my fingers shuffling across the edges of old, used vinyl records and feeling that rush of excitement when I find that one elusive Keith Jarrett album? Will I ever not feel the urgency of the moment when I see the title on the spine of the new Danielewski book hidden up there in the stacks? Probably not. Hopefully some brick and mortar places will still be around for the occasional treat I can give myself.

Fortunately I’m a geek for technology. I love my computer. I enjoy the internet. I love iTunes, Amazon, Yahoo, Twitter, Facebook, reading and writing Blogs, Booktrope (wink wink), etc. It will never replace spending time out in the “real” world for me. But used in the right times and places, it’s such a wonderful tool.

We don’t have jet packs yet and we’re not living on the moon. That’s okay. We can talk to friends on the other side of the world using Skype for free. We can send messages across the country at the speed of light. That’s pretty damn cool if you ask me.

I look at this faded letter sent from a young soldier to his girl back home. The ink has a gorgeous thickness to it unlike the cheap plastic pens we use today. The paper is soft and sturdy to the touch. He’s standing guard against the enemy he knows is coming. It’s a dark night in a foreign country and all he can do is pray that he lives long enough to write her again next week. The letter won’t even reach her for a month.

On the postcard the young man sits in a boat playing his mandolin to a beautiful woman waving her handkerchief over the orange sails of a ship out on calm blue waters. We can only imagine the hours it took to paint the image back in 1907. The artist didn’t have Photoshop. He couldn’t retouch the picture if his brush slipped unless he did it by hand redoing hours and hours of work.

Hopefully SOPA won't pass. Hopefully we won’t limit the ability we have today to observe and participate with each other and with the rest of the world. Yes there are a lot of illegal things that happen on the internet. There are many things that go on away from technology that shouldn’t happen too. Quite a bit of them committed by the very same government public servants trying to pass the legislation. If we really do live in the “Land of the Free”, we need to be “Brave” and keep it so.

As I mentioned before, it’s all about give and take. We’re still in the infancy of these new technologies. Discovering the boundaries and pushing them forward is how we’ve always moved ahead as a species. Ferdinand Magellan and Christopher Columbus made their journeys. We headed West into the wilds across the frontier. We sat atop giant bombs that when they exploded, shot up through the atmosphere all the way up to the moon. Who knows how far we can go now if we let ourselves push.

So here we are in 2012. The future already. Not what we expected, but it never is. Is it?

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