what once was is all i think about, no, i don’t want world war 2 and the holocaust, and no, i don’t want to be drafted to vietnam, and the kennedys weren’t really that great, and jim crow was terrible, i don’t want polio, thank you jonas salk, there was no perfect time, what i’m talking about is technology and the speed of life, the environment, 24/7 internet television, tiktok addiction, the list is endless, the modern world is tough on someone who was born in the wrong year, i’m thinking it should have been 1955, not 1972, in 1955 tv was still new, american cars were still cool, food was less toxic, the planet wasn’t full on globally warming, and the dodgers and yankees had some epic baseball battles, the who could have been my first concert instead of the village people, as a kid i could still use a typewriter, and i could live for several decades with no email, no text messages, no cellphone, and i could have gotten lost more, remember when we used to get lost with real maps? i sound like an old curmudgeon, and i guess i’m getting there, but i look up and down san francisco streets and there are self-driving cars, motorized bikes speeding through red lights, people in tents, nothing seems to make sense, and shel silverstein isn’t alive anymore to help explain it to me, gosh bless his sarah cynthia sylvia stout, remember what happened? the whole pile of garbage just fell everywhere and destroyed everything, sometimes that feels like us right now, the 21st century collapsing into automation, artificially intelligent machine learning, humanity riding in the backseat, but tell them how you really feel dan, i still have hope, otherwise why teach? why be a parent? but something is off, it’s all just too fast, too digital, too many screens, can’t we just slow it down a little bit? take a deep breath, now one more, that’s a start.
Tag: 21st century
How To Use Email
first, remember to delete, nothing is important, next, when in doubt, hide, no one knows if you are really there anyway, third, bcc people you barely know, this keeps life interesting, forwarding messages is also a good idea, especially if they are attached, to you, or, if you have an attachment, don’t forget technology is a tool and it doesn’t exist at all if you don’t look at it, close your eyes, never open your computer or phone, it might come out and scare you, or ask you questions, especially ignore the inbox, it really means outbox, like outhouse, spam goes to the bathroom, always send emails before 5am, shows you really care, trash happens, enjoy destruction, the space bar is never useful, shift doesn’t matter, hit return to before.
Daniel W. Polk 