So you say you wan' a Devolution? Welllllll ya know....

We all wanna change the World.....

But here's  me: Full-grown, 52 (and a half) years old, college-educated, married, working mother, I have been an adult for 30-some years ...so why the heck is it that lately I get the feeling that I am growing down, instead of up? And this morning, way before light, it was that thought that got me up out of bed.  Those pre-dawn demons stirring up troublesome thoughts again.  Failures and short comings and shoulda-coulda-woulda's.  And for some reason, bits of  the Beatles Revolution 1 were swirling around in my brain

See, it occurs to me this morning that I have fallen way behind.  My current cell phone for example is a Razor.  (are you giggling...)  A couple of years ago my toddler niece, Audrey, was digging through my purse on a car trip and exclaimed "Hey you have a regular phone like ME".  Her Mother, Father, Brother, and Sister were all on their smart phones making dinner reservations, checking the menu, mapping the location, listening to old Led Zeppelin music and playing Angry Birds or something.

I was happy with my regular phone.  It never occurred to me to covet a smart phone.   Until last week I learned about two apps that changed my view.  Stargazer app identifies stellar and planetary objects from where you are to where you point your phone.  You want the name of a constellation:  point your phone.  You see a bright spot in the sky and wonder what you are seeing?  Point your phone.  I want that.  I also want to posses translator app.  You need to convey a thought in Portugese, pull out your phone and tell it the message.  The phone translates that message to Portugese.  I have always wanted a pocket translator.  With a tool like that I could go fearlessly wherever my heart desires.  I do not need a phone to play Angry Birds.  But now that I see a value for that tool that applies to my life.   I covet it alright!

I have jokingly referred to myself as a "dinosaur" or a "techno-dummy" but I did not really buy those labels. Before.  Until recently I thought myself fairly bright, valuing my own opinion above most others. And after all, I that figured out how to hook up our first answering machine and then later the fax and our first cell phone.  I set up our first PC, an Apple II passed down from my Step-dad.  And I wired it for caps (yes, I did. Really. It didn't come with caps.)  I set up our Emachine.  I replaced the modem on that when it was burned out by a lightening hit.  With a manual or guidance from someone with the know how, I felt I could do just about any old thing.

I realized I was opting for simplicity as Ipods, and Iphones, and Ipads, and DVR's and all manner of advances came into daily use without me getting on board.  But really, I always felt very sure I could catch up with the rest of the World if I ever decided I wanted to.

My little laptop computer started acting out about a year ago.  It just got a little slower and slower every time I started it up.  I got help when I found myself cussin' at the thing and going to work without checking my email cause the dang #%#$%# thing couldn't get going by the time I had to leave.  Seems I had loaded too much stuff and needed some RAM.

Joe, The IT Guru at work diagnosed and corrected the problem but shook his head sadly and cautioned that "these old things just don't have the memory the new ones do.."  HUH????  Old?  I just got it in 2006 (Listen children,  that is like last night in grown-up time)...but it was temporarily fine and I loaded some more stuff on it and next thing I knew UP JUMPED THE DEVIL!  Really important stuff stopped working.

I do not know the words to describe the collapse...it culminated in the little machine catching a virus which went out to everyone in my e-address files and that DID include my Work and specifically my Boss.  Not so good.  The laptop went back to IT Joe and after several weeks, stripped of all the falderall I had accumulated, it was returned to me shiny-clean, fast, cured and virus-protected.  I still cannot call up the language to describe the incident or how it was fixed.

Now, I think it isn't so much the breakdown of my laptop that has got me reflecting on my relative backward status.  It is that realization that I could not describe the symptoms as they arose...I cannot explain what went wrong first, what happened next, much less what particular systems were interrupted ("blah blah blah" says my mind).  You should have heard me on the phone that day I learned of the virus with that guy in technical support.  He genuinely tried to help me but at the same time I could imagine him rolling his eyes at his fellow technical support team people.  I surely sounded moronic to a person who really understands how these jobs work! 

The feeling of speaking and hearing words that have NO meaning in the context of your daily doings...the powerlessness of being ignorant and having to rely on others to communicate your troubles and your needs.  That is a waker-upper, my friends!  It was only my good fortune that Mary,  the IT guru's wife and interpreter, took up my cause.  Spoke for me and got my laptop the attention it needed. (Do you think the phone app people list "techno-geek" as a language for the translator function on those smart phones...surely if I can think it, it has already been done!)

So, here in the wee hours of morning when one can't help but reflect...I ask me:  How have I slipped so far behind in the modern World?   More frightening stuff to ponder:  Is it just the gadgets, the tools of modern life that have raced beyond me?  Where else have I fallen behind?  It does seem that I am slower.  I observe a younger, faster-paced crowd at work and play around me, getting a whole lot more accomplished than I ever did.  I wonder.  Is it their mastery of the tools?  Are they more energetic?  Do they sleep less?  Work harder?

And then more comparisons leap to mind.  There are people fitter than me.  How do they find time for all that exercise and what is the source of all their energy?  And there are lots of people with more stuff than I have.  Bigger houses, lots more toys, nicer cars and trappings of every sort.  We make a good living with our two incomes and we can't afford all that stuff!  Where do they get all that money? 

Oh I have some cool stuff too.  I've got a neat little Garmin GPS for traveling fearlessly (a theme appears here) in unknown territory.  My son helped me set up my features so my vehicle on the little screen is a Pirate Ship. :) I have XM radio in my car too, a life expanding tool for me on so many levels.  To be able to listen to every kind of music wherever I am driving is wonderful for me.  OH!  And I have a Kindle e-reader! I love that I can carry a library around in my purse.  And my laptop is working again!  Some people I know do not have these conveniences.  Maybe some would even envy my advantages.

So as it gets lighter those demons are backing off and I am realizing I am where I am by my choices.  I  never was terribly ambitious so I am not rich.  Still I can add what I most want in my life or decide not to add.  No one else has really limited me but me.  What I have and that which I have not is by my own design.  Do I want the fabulous advances in technology to stop or even slow down so I can catch up? Not at all.

But I have felt that powerlessness and I have to wonder.  Is this the same powerlessness experienced by people living in poverty.  Is it this same sense that the World has swept right by them and left them sitting there looking out at comforts and abundance just beyond their reach...If it is, and I think it might be, then there is another comparison to bring into the light of day.

I keep seeing on the news what some are calling a "Revolution" taking place across the United States.  They have named this revolution "Occupy Wall Street". I think the ones getting interviewed on the news are saying they want some of the wealth held by the big financial institutions to shake loose and somehow be distributed down to the poorer,  have-not classes.  Otherwise it is unclear what they want to have changed.

"You say you got a real solution?  Well you know we'd all love to see the plan..."

I think they are asking for reform that will result in a greater percentage of  people having more influence on the way our governments work than they do now.  They contend that 1% of the people (the "rich") control the destinies of the rest of us. But there are so many strata of abundance or it's lack.  I bet the richest guy in the world wishes he had something he does not have and cannot get. So what could change the World to ensure that all are equal have-ers?  I think we each design our lives to have what we have.  Do we have to stop the money system in order to allow some folks to catch up? That just does not make sense. 

"...We all want to change the world, but when you talk about destruction don't you know that you can count me out..."

For years I have claimed immunity saying 'nobody asked me' but now I think the time has come when we can offer our opinions without being asked and this is mine.  It is not original, unique and may not be a solution to everybody's concern with regard to our rich/poor, backward/advanced, fast/slow, complex and simple World.  It is what we have.  Nobody can hope to change the world but everyone can hope to change what might need changing in themselves.  That is what we can each do.  Make the best of what we have from where we are at this moment.  Then we may reach out in whatever way we can with the resources we can share.  Privately.  This is not a matter for government.  Nor is it the governments business how businesses distribute their resources.  My opinion.


"..You say you'll change the constitution....Well you know you better free your mind instead.."

From the inside out we can make real change that we value.  Today I might start changing my world by finding a way to get a smart phone.  Or I might do without one a little longer while I play with my restored laptop and learn more of it's language and ways.  Or maybe for today I'll just let go of this quandry spawned by the early am worries I woke up with and take my dog for a walk. While the sun shines. Leave devolution to the revolutionaries and revolution to my evolution....

"..Cause you know, it's gonna be alright..yeah it's gonna be alright...you know it's gonna be alright.."

 




 



Don't you know it's gonna be alright

".We're all doing what we can..."