I met a Lady and shook her hand yesterday, visited for a few minutes and shared a couple of stories and laughs. Now that in and of itself is no big deal, in fact this wonderful Lady was polite and even put up with my humour; and God knows that would try anyone’s patience but she was an amazing Lady. The interesting sidebar to this is that the Lady is a hundred and four today, Happy Birthday. Wow to live that long is amazing, I know that unless there is some new miracle drug I won’t be around nearly that long, and with that my ex wives are sighing a collective sigh of relief.
Meeting this Lady got me to thinking what was the world like when she was a teen? Well I have adopted an eighty two year old as a surrogate mom, and she says “today is like living on another planet” from when she was growing up. Can you imagine from the time when cars were a novelty, and electricity in homes was for the rich and my goodness no phones to speak of. Can you even imagine the world without cell phones and instant everything? The world seems to be changing so very fast can you imagine watching this from one hundred and four year old eyes?
In this new and I guess exciting age I like to think that for the most part I embrace the changing world. I like to think I am up on the latest gadgets maybe not as a user but a passive observer. Maybe I do question the pace at which the changes are taking place but I am ok if people around me are excited about the newest techno toy. There is a side effect of this new technological world I am not sure is a positive thing though. As I look out my window there is a noticeable and peculiar change happening to the shape of human beings that I am certain it is caused by the new advances in technology. Yes I am sure there is a metamorphosis happening, and the human form is changing.
It was not that long ago that I remember when humans used to walk we were relatively upright eyes ahead scanning for danger or to browse the opposite sex. The arms swung freely at the sides, or in the rare instance tucked in the pockets for those wanting to be cool. In some cases especially in new love situations the arms were wrapped usually uncomfortably around the shoulders or the waste of the new acquisition. I always remembered how hard it was to walk in that position, because the girls pace and hips never moved in the same motion as mine and it was weird, but you hung on for dear life. It didn’t even matter if you were losing the feeling in your arm or your hand was going to sleep, you hung on to your prize, awe to be young.
Well what I noticed looking out my fourth floor office window; and I even phoned the university and offered the Anthropologists an opportunity to use it for capturing this event in some new digital format because I think this is that big of deal. The basic form has changed, a huge percentage of the human beings are reshaping into a newer version of biped. The head has started to droop slightly and the eyes are no longer scanning the objects in front of them. In fact instead of looking forward there are only a few quick darting looks then the eyes retreat to looking less than twenty inches in front of the human. The arms no longer swing, embrace, scratch or even point they have instead begun to curl inward and the hands almost clasp together. This position must throw off balance and perception of one’s environment as the humans that have taken on this form are constantly running into others, are far behind the crowd at walk lights and are constantly stumbling or tripping. The worse thing yet, and this scares this cowboy, is I that see these same creatures looking the same way about twenty inches in front of them an in the same position in moving vehicles, and not just cars, huge trucks and busses. I wonder if the one hundred and four year old Lady would find this change as scary as I do, I think she would?
So after I phoned the university, and I want to tell you they think you are a little off if you happen to be as observant as I was, they even went as far as to call me crazy. I think they are in denial or maybe the person I spoke to has got this infliction and was covering her tracks. Anyway the not so nice lady Anthropologist told me I was ridiculous she pointed out that the people I observed were not changing into an unrecognizable creature but were simply “texting”. She even suggested I should get into the twenty first century, and told me it was the newest way to communicate. Well so that solves that mystery. Texting not walking, not observing the world around you, not taking in the sights or sounds of your environment, just texting. This texting seems to be so vital and important that you could possibly put your life at risk or those around you because you are busy. Well she told me!
I don’t know though; as I look out and watch those zombies so tuned out and only tuned into their texting, nothing else seems to matter. I guess it’s hard for me to imagine that this texting is good for the human race collectively. To be so consumed with messaging that you can’t focus on your surroundings just doesn’t seem right. I know that I personally would rather do anything other than walking down a street oblivious to the world and be consumed with texting. I certainly would rather have a pretty girl with her arm wrapped around my waste or I would even like to be the cool one with his hands in his pockets as long as I got to notice all the pretty girls along with the interesting people and sights. I think that maybe, just maybe we have let technology run amok and we are becoming its slave and that can’t make us better people in the process, at least that’s the way it looks from where I sit.
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