The combination of the time machine quality of the football game last night, conversations about culture, and a writing prompt about "technophobia" caused me to want to share a poem in response to change. I am startled off and on again by the many differences between twentieth and twenty first century life. I think some of the changes (like more effective chemotherapy for many cancers and information access so quickly through the internet) are extremely positive, some like the trend toward fancy coffee with funny names and cacao percentage just style and neutral, and some of the changes - like using ear plugs in public, annonymous stores, less local, acceptance in the work place of it being impossible to do well in the expected amount of time what one is asked to do, acceptance of credit card debt as necessary - have risks. But they are all changes in the world in which I function, hence the poem.
Alienation
It's not the technology I fear,
style is style, methodology
irrelevant, function vital.
What I fear is feeling lost
in a context too foreign,
finding nothing familiar,
alienatien of dated elder.
3 comments:
I can relate to your feelings about changes. Especially in the last five or six years I have sometimes just felt change rushing past me and me not keeping up. It is interesting to think off all the changes in our daily lives.
Some I can think of include: I rarely write checks anymoe-- ATM card for the most part; so many more audio books, computers in elementary schools, Blackberries and iPods; sharing photos in places like SmugMug and the total domination of digital cameras; shift of medical care to the patient with more home testing devices; doggie daycare; younger people expecting they will never buy a home; steep decline in newspaper industry.
So many more too. It would be interesting to make a comprehensive list.
I feel alienated too (but then I think a lot of the purpose of much of the technology IS to alienate us--well at least to move past REQUIRING interaction--to move away from personal interactions and toward impersonal mechanical transactions: instead of having the same bank teller for years who knows your family, we have intimate relations with our atm machines. Instead of sitting on our porches to stay cool we have AC and keep ourselves closed off inside. Instead of talking with people in public places we use our ipods or cell phones. It's to make us less dependant on the world immediatly available to us and more independant (though I think it makes us just differently dependent)
And don't even get me started on style. I am SO sick of post-modern advertising!
I want a more interdependent world. ndependent can feel lonely to me - though I do like hte speed and convenience of ATM machines I also still know my bank tellers at two different banks. I wonder how many of us livein pockets of both centuries? I'd love to hear more about your take on postmodern advertising when you have time RUth - if you ever have time.
Post a Comment