Have You Checked Your Email?

Me and Red

I don't know how excited most folks are about technology and how it makes our lives easier, but I am one step away from suicide. Modestly, of course. I won't be hanging myself in the bathroom or asking my wife to run over me in the driveway with our island car. One more blip of a QR code, forgotten password or demand for another app so I can connect a speaker to my laptop and I'll probably just swallow a bucket of nails.

Sometimes you feel better when you really feel the pain.

I can't believe I said that. But that's how I feel.

Technology is supposed to be easy, save time, provide more choices... yet it doesn't do that at all.

Life used to be so simple. I would connect my speaker wires to my amplifier. And I had really good speakers! I had a sound component system with a turntable and a deep collection of LPs of my favorite musical artists. Those records came in jackets with cool art on the front and liner notes on the back that told a story about the artist. I would rest the needle of the tonearm onto those vinyl platters and sweet, rich music would fill the air.

I traded my two table-sized speakers for two little ones, each smaller than a two-slotted toaster. I swapped a load of LPs for a few measly CDs that never sounded as good. I was saving space, trying to be more modern, attempting to save my marriage.

Even that seems like another lifetime. The entire component system went the way of the rotary phone. CDs are now relics. Try to find a use or application for the lowly nickel (once worth a Snickers or Baby Ruth).

I paid cash for a couple of malassadas at the bakery the other day and the clerk could not for the life of her figure how to give change for a twenty dollar bill. Young people don't do that. They have screens and apps and facial recognition. Wow.

Even if I could figure out how to connect my speaker to my laptop I know the sound would be inferior to those records I had. 

So I sit in silence lost in sweet, wistful memories.

About 20 years ago I heard a famous NY magazine editor being interviewed on the radio. He was elderly. He said his days were pleasant and wonderful because he could conjure memories of his youth, hear the ring of bells at Christmas time, smell the pine scent of the tree and hear laughter of children playing in the street. He didn't know what technology had in store for us. He didn't know about the thousands of emails we sort through each hour of each day.

Technology is moving so fast that what you purchased yesterday is practically obsolete by the time you receive it in the mail. I receive an online notification nearly every hour of something new I need to download or upload or reply to or delete, or be left stranded in the dark. Or penniless. Does a reference to pennies have any connection with our modern world?

For some of us it does. A penny for your thoughts A penny saved is a penny earned.

Today it's a bitcoin purchased is a bitcoin never seen, touched or smelled. And you must consider NFTs (non-fungible tokens). Why are they so popular? What does fungible mean, anyway? What's the point of something not fungible?

It sounds like something to go with pickle ball. One of the few things today that is not digital. But you won't find me playing pickle ball, either. I'd rather fall into soft water than onto hard court, thank you.

I know I sound like a cranky old man. I plead moderately guilty because I feel like I've earned the right to be cranky. I fashion myself cranky but wise. The Hawaiian culture shows respect for the elderly. We're called kupuna. We have wisdom from our years of living, we tell cool stories and strum our ukuleles.

Just keep me away from technology. I could be dangerous.