Do you ever sit and wonder what life is going to be like, 25, or even 30 years down the line? When I was a little girl, I used to. I'd lay on my stomach on the floor whilst watching The Jestons on TV and imagine a world where Rosie the Robot would bring me a grilled cheese sandwhich and Coke, where I'd never have to intentionally ignore my mother's shouts to pick up the poop from our robotic dog, Astro, because HELLO, robotic dogs don't poop, and then on Sunday afternoons, we'd all pile into our car and zoom around the stratosphere, maybe stopping on Jupiter to pick up something to eat.
It seems silly but that's really as much as I thought about what life would be like in the future and how cool it would be to have all these gizmos and gadgets and things that would make our lives easier. But now that I'm here (sans the flying car and robotic dog), I don't know if all these gadgets are so cool, or if they really make my life any easier. Sure, all of our snazy advances in technology has made it easier for me to overshare share the numerous details of our lives with anyone and everyone, and I can even order pizza online, (although it still takes more than an hour to get to me - they haven't quite worked out the kinks on that one yet), notwithstanding all these neato advances, some of which are meant to bring us closer together, I kinda of feel like we're moving further and further from one another, in spite of the fact that we're all connected to each other, virtually 24 hours a day! Does that make sense?
With Facebook, Twitter, email and text messaging, we really don't even need to talk to one another on the phone anymore or even pick up a pen and write a letter. Instead of sending a nice personal card for your grandmother's birthday, you can just send her a convenient e-card. You don't even have to walk into the local branch of your bank any more...you can take care of that all, online. Because of all of these wonderful technological and internet advances, you really don't have to interact with anyone, on a personl level, anymore if you don't want to. You can confine your life to a world almost entirely made up of virtual interaction. Thankfully though, if you want to have a family, you still have to do that, the old fashioned way! However, if you need help hooking up with someone to start that family with, you can let your fingers do the walking. There are a plethora of online dating sites that will match you with a potential mate, for a nominal fee of course, which may or may not include your first born.
In our own home we each have cell phones (which, are in fact smart phones but have a habit of making us feel really stupid!), computers, MP3 players, DVR's and a few other electronic gadgets. I pay most of our bills online and because of this, I only write one check a month...our rent. Recently, I had to stop and think about the actual physical act of writing the check because I just don't do it often at all anymore. I kept looking at it to make sure I'd filled it out the correct way. It's funny, but I recall opening my very first checking account and being so excited when my first box of checks arrived in the mail. I ran my hands over my name, imprinted at the top and felt like a real adult. And now the act of writing a check is almost an annoyance.
I might be in the minority but I'm not as excited about all these technological gizmos that Apple and Microsoft, AT&T and Sony are telling me I need to have. I have a cell phone because...well, because I have one. I suppose I'd survive if I didn't have one, just like I did when I didn't have one. Even though having to carry it around with me all over the place is annoying, it does come in handy in the event of an emergency. I just don't see the need to be able to do everything from an object the size of a deck of cards, that I can do from my personal computer. And I'm so annoyed with texting sometimes that it's easier to just call the person I want to send the message to! I've even heard people say that they hate talking on the phone at all because texting is so much easier. Hmmm, I guess I know why a lot of my calls have been going to voice mail lately.
The one current digital craze out there that I absolutely refuse to have anything to do with is the "e-reader." I can't do it. I want to hold a book in my hands and have the tangible, physical experience of reading an actual book. I want to be able to smell the crisp, white pages, hot off the presses and run my hands along the binding. I have so many books that I've had for more than 25 years. I can open up an old paperback copy of Stephen King's Salem's Lot and when I turn to page 227 there is a book marker there which was an old perfume insert from an ancient copy of 17 Magazine that I'd had. It still smells like "Malibu Musk." I can recall how I was 16 when I first read that book and slept with the lights on for an entire week because I was so scared that Barlow was going to come crawling out from under my bed and attack me!
I can open other books, like my copy of Anne of Green Gables that I've had forever and it still smells like my Aunt Meta's home (where the book was kept in a box for years and years) - a mixture of Noxzema skin cream, instant coffee and Estee Lauder pressed powder. I can close my eyes and remember sitting on her screened-in back porch on the glider, reading about Anne's adventures in Avonlea, while the bees buzzed in the roses around me, and the "shuk shuk shuk" of the sprinklers showered the grass of my aunt's back garden. All I need to do is open that book and I'm instantly transported back to her house.
Books are a very physical experience for me, one which I've tried to share with each of my kids. So far, Meaghan and Gaby are really the only ones that share my love of books, but I cherish the moments when I've sat with them in my lap, cuddled close and read the words, over and over again through the years...
Last night while I lay thinking here
Some Whatifs crawled inside my ear
And pranced and partied all night long
And sang their same old Whatif song:Whatif I flunk that test?
Whatif green hair grows on my chest?
Whatif nobody likes me?
Whatif a bolt of lightning strikes me?...
..from Shel Silverstien's A Light in the Attic, one of our favorites. The jacket of that book has long since disapeared, and the pages are tattered and worn. But it tells a story and has a history, something an e-reader will never have. It has crayon doodles from where Matt and Meaghan took turns "writing" in it when they were three. It is missing a couple of pages that Zach ate when he was one and it has teeth indentations from being teethed on while Gaby was cutting her bottom teeth.
Books, real, physical books, have an intimacy associated with them. That's something that can never be conveyed by a flat white screen with black text scrolling across it. It's cold and hard. I'd never feel comfortable taking a pricey e-reader to the beach because I'd be too worried about getting sand in it and damaging it, whereas with a book, I can toss it down on the beach if I suddenly need to run after my 4 year old.
And there's a lot to be said for the act of walking into a book store, especially the tiny, hole-in-the-wall independent sellers, and buying a book, getting to the check out counter and having a discussion with the sales clerk about the books you've bought.
I overheard someone say that books would be obsolete in about 25 years. So that's what the future might hold? Cold metal pressed against flesh, whether it's phone, i-prooduct or e-reader...that's just so impersonal. So many people rejoice in the age of connectivity we're currently living in, but sometimes I wonder if all of this social media and connectivity through various metal boxes just makes it easier for us to really avoid true personal interaction in the guise of communicating through all of this stuff. And really, that's all it is...stuff. Stuff we all seem so bent on having, myself included.
Whilst one of these days I may very well cave to finally getting my own iPod (everyone else around me has one, including Gaby!), I can say, emphatically, that I can't see myself ever being enthusiastic about reading Green Eggs and Ham via something called a Nook or a Kindle. I kinda think Dr. Seuss is rolling over in his grave just at the thought of it!
In the meantime, you can find me sitting here with an ancient copy of The Raven, drinking an ice cold Coke out of a real glass bottle, and listening to my beat up CD of Paul McCartney's Live and Let Die.
