I think back to the good old days of getting information. I would listen to one or two radio stations. I could get fewer than ten television stations – only three when I lived in Edmonton. Telephone and letters delivered the rest of the news in my life.
I remember when I live on the Henschel farm in South Edmonton. I would trudge out to the mailbox about 200 metres from the house. I could have waited and gotten it when I drove in or out of the driveway, but I enjoyed the walk regardless of the weather.
If the mailbox was empty, my heart would sink. However, if there was news, I would clutch the letter. In the summer I would read it on the way back to the house, but when the weather was not so inviting, I would anxiously scurry back to the house. Then I would settle into a comfortable chair by the window where there was plenty of light and take in each handwritten word.
There are times when I long for a letter like that – handwritten. The last one I received was from a guest at our bed and breakfast. She is a wonderful person who used to be an actress. She was actually in one episode of Star Trek. Rather than letters from a keyboard, each one is hand-crafted with a unique style. The author’s personality bleeds into the page. You can almost hear her voice in the words.
Today things are much different. And just like you, much if it is spam. When I look at the amount of information I have to process on a daily basis compared to the 1970s is astonishing. I often wonder if there is a saturation point. I figure there will be a time when the public will demand that everything slows down. Otherwise our abilities to form any reality will be fragmented so badly it won’t make any sense.
What do I mean? There are so many “truths” on the Internet these days that it depends on what you read that will determine your belief system. I see a couple of problems with this. One is the ability to check everything to see if it is true. For example, we have all had friends who have forwarded us junk mail promising us that Bill Gates will send us money if we only forward an email to all of our friends. If people are so gullible with this, how will they decipher other information on the Internet that might be a bit more important?
It almost reminds me of the Tower of Babel. All was going well until everybody started speaking different languages. It fragmented the people. I see this same kind of split with information. People are going off in all directions and they are usually doing it alone, much like at a fireworks display. One of the hard things is keeping up with it all. I feel like a hamster running in the wheel and it is turning faster and faster.
That’s when I go back in my mind to the long lane on the farm in Alberta and dream of getting a hand-written letter from home.
On this site I will be sharing my thoughts. I hope you enjoy them. Being my personal thoughts, you may not agree with all of them. I have no problem with that and I hope you don't, either. If you want to be updated every time I add a post, scroll down to the bottom and subscribe. If you want to contact Johnny V., you can do so at stevensj5"at"hotmail.com.
2 comments:
Hi Johnny
I am not certain if I understand your tower of Babel comment.
Is this the new one in Malaysia or the old one by Pieter Brugel? If the old one what about a new global language? Or the future of World communication?
Only joking!
If you have time however you might like to see http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=_YHALnLV9XU or http://www.lernu.net
Brian, first, thanks for identifying yourself. It is much more pleasant writing to a real human being than "Anonymous".
Your two URLs talk about Esparanto. When I was talking about Babel, I wasn't meaning literally languages. I was talking more about how the Internet has allowed anyone to publish his "truth" for others to follow. With so many ideas out there, there is a potential of people becoming so individual in their beliefs that society is fractured and they feel isolated.
If the whole world was black or white, that wouldn't be good. There is very little choice. However, when I ask you your favourite colour, you might say "blue". Great, then all the blue people could get together. But if you have billions of colours and you everybody has a different hue, then that can create problems, particularly when there are colour blind people like me.
So, I can believe something I read on the Internet and allow it to shape and form me, but that "reality" may be based on falsehood. In the older days when there was less "truth" out there, my belief is that there were more people to examine it to see if it is true. Now, the amount of information out there almost defies scrutiny of all of it.
Am I making sense? I hope so.
What I am trying to say is that because there are so many choices out there, there is a greater potential for people to make bad ones. Who knows, maybe some of the readers of this blog may form a cult around Johnny V. Fortunately, I know some of the people who read this and they weigh what I say very carefully and are not afraid to tell me when they disagree.
A good example is the story of the girl who gave an apple a day to a guy in a concentration camp in World War 2. They met in New York on a blind date and eventually married. The problem is that the story was fabricated. It went along for months before people chalenged the idea and found to be false. Book publishers were fooled. Oprah was fooled. However, the sheer volume of information out there now defies the ability to check everything closely. Thus, people can be duped into believing bad information. Spam on the Internet encourages that.
And, yes, if you forward this message on to somebody, Bill Gates will really send you all that money. See what I mean?
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