It Is Never the Same

September 11, 2001.  None of us who were around will forget it. "They" say that our country changed and it will never be the same. "They" are correct. We who were here before that day are very aware of the changes. The media brings that fact to our attention at every turn.

As I was reading and listening to this week's media I thought, "It has always been so."  Since the time of our early ancestors there have been changes; some subtle and some dramatic:  fire, animal domestication, agriculture, trade, the industrial revolution, the American Revolution, the Arab Spring, wars, and numerous inventions such as the wheel,  printing press,  automobile, radio, television, computers, cell phones, and on and on. Natural disasters and mass migrations have certainly brought striking modifications to the world as it was known before those events.

Change can be for the better and it can also cause pain. It is difficult for me  to adapt to most changes. I resist the internet world and instant communication and the loss of a quieter life....unhooked, uncharged, unconnected. Yet I use the latest gadgets when necessary and they can make my life easier and bring me more information about the world around me. I find that I do not digest it all, however. At times I have information overload and it passes over, soon forgotten or muddled in my head. The books I read in the quiet of the night do stay with me, in some cases for my whole life. The moments I spend with myself, my thoughts, and nature bring me a calm that soon shatters if I become too involved in the world of distractions.

My husband and I manage to resist some change. We are back on the grid for now but we have limited television, no cell phone, no call waiting. I find that I can lose focus so quickly when inundated with the noise of the world. We make choices every day, for better or worse, and my hope is that I may keep from either extreme of too much connectedness or too little, whatever that might mean.