I remember a time when you went to the library to look up information you wanted to know because it was interesting to you. You borrowed a stack of heavy books and dragged them home for two weeks and poured over them and made notes with a fountain pen and binder paper. Then you dragged them all back again for another stack.
We now have an ability to get information from the Internet at a moments notice. We can find out just about anything from who bought a certain piece of property, to how many calories there are in the chocolate covered beetle we ate at the last fair. We can find out who is who and why they are who. We can find out the answers to our children's homework, why you can't go to Saudi Arabia if you're Jewish, and what it means to be a Catholic...
But what have we lost? In the grand scheme of information, have we lost the ability to be educated and only "informed?" Have we lost the desire to read whole books in our wild scramble to collect what is essentially useless information? Do we know more or less? Is our Weltanuchaung wider and more complete, or sadly lacking?
I remember twice a year, I would put my best dress on, my Mary Jane's, my dress coat and go with my mother down to the ferry and ferry across to San Francisco for a day of shopping, lunch out at Blum's with both my parents, and ended the day with a huge Golden Gate Bridge dessert made from ice cream and wafer cookies. Sometimes we would go to a very very rare movie; it was a vacation day and treasured.
Today, we can shop on line, buy nearly anything we want, and we can have it delivered overnight. We can pay with a card, get deferred payment on money back cards that earn us vacation dollars by punching in a number or even clicking once to buy. We can watch any movie we want anytime we want.
But what are we buying? What are we watching? And are these things treasured? Has the joy of Christmas buying and wrapping only turned into a mind boggling chore? Do we dread someone's birthday because it means endless shopping for something they "don't" have? Have we lost that human contact with local shop owners? Do we know from whom we are shopping? And do we actually "watch" a movie or just have it on for the distracting noise?
I remember eating out a lot as a child because my parents were very modern. We ate abalone and whole jalapeno peppers, and tiny bay shrimp. We ate Polynesian food at a place called Tiburon Tommy's and it included tiny sweet spareribs and egg rolls. Every year we waited for strawberries, peaches and grapes to come into season. You got cake on your birthday, and ice cream as a really special occasion treat, and soda pop was a Shirley Temple at the restaurant. We ate pizza once a week at another place and few of my friends knew what a pizza was.
Today, people can and do eat out any night of the week. We can have out of season food every day. We can eat, chocolate, ice cream, soda, chips, pizza and strawberries every day.
But what have we lost? While we take grapes for granted as a year round fruit, we have lost the ideal of cooking and have substituted carry out as the ideal for food. We have gained weight, lost general good health, lost the desire to try new things, and have decreased our longevity. We are the first generation who will not outlive our parents.
We can travel anywhere with a click of our mouse. If you even said those ten words to someone I grew up with back then, he or she would have thought that you were telling a story filled with imagination. Today I heard from Facebook that my son is going to Saudi Arabia. He travels all the time. He was in Switzerland last week, and he will be in Southern California by the end of the month. He lives in Germany. Travel is instant, and people do it all the time.
In a George Bernard Shaw production years ago, I heard a statement, "Travel narrows one." Terry and I laughed at the statement years ago. How funny that someone would even say something as completely stupid as "travel narrows one." But has it become narrowing? Is it as exciting today as it was years ago? Or has travel become a chore, an invasive, abusive chore that is dreaded by those who have to do it over and over again.
I'm a writer, so I "rarely take my body with me when I travel..." and for many who do travel, they would laugh at that statement today much more readily than "travel narrows one."
When I was a little girl, I had a doctor who was kindly, cared about us, made house calls, and chatted with my mother for what seemed to be hours. When I was a young woman, I had a doctor I adored. She was, for me, my safety zone. She is still a friend.
Today, I put off going to the doctor as if it's a death sentence. It takes years to make those appointments. Only the bitterest and most sleepless nights will drive me forward...and what have we lost? Routine medicine has taken over personalized medicine. The idea that we are being lined up like cattle to be shot, wormed, numbered, and stamped sends chills up my spine. One must have the doctor read your name on the file before you can be confident the doctor even has the right patient.
In the gush to have everything done now, have we lost the personal touch? Have we lost that "wait and see" kind of medicine that got you through without a pill and without a quick fix that takes the rest of your life to repair? Are we saturated with medication? What happened to a hot bath and a nap to fix a headache? What happened to a little brandy and someone to talk to to save you from taking a Xanax? What happened to the idea that we can fix type two diabetes with diet and exercise? What happened to building a body that could withstand chronic illness?
With all the marvelous developments we have been blessed with over the years, are we really taking the best advantage we can and benefiting or are we grabbing defeat at the hands of victory? It's probably a crude combination. Personally, I love the Internet, my Kindle, buying all those out of season foods, and shopping on line...I just hope I don't take those things for granted.
No comments:
Post a Comment