It is not the first time that one of my favourite magazines closes its doors, but somehow this one affects me in ways that I am not sure I understand. It seems that as I get older, more and more of what is familiar to me is quickly being replaced by the unfamiliar. In an age of continuous fast pace "high tech" digital, I long for what is comforting to me, a slower paced and a somewhat simpler life. I now understand what my grandparents meant when they would say "the good old days" or "back in the days."
For me, the continuous fast pace digital life lacks human connection; "high tech low touch" as Michael Bernard Beckwith would say. And ... if we are not careful and monitor ourselves, the "high tech" can make it easy for some of us to forget that, at the other end of our internet connection is another human being, a being that has tender feelings ... someone that hurts just like us. If you have read any comments on some blogs or news articles, you know exactly what I mean. They call it "cyber bullying!"
We are a society that is so digitally connected that many of us live our lives via television "reality shows" or computer "cyber gaming/worlds". I am not one to watch television or participate in cyber gaming/worlds, well does Club Penguin count? Yes, guilty of waddling around a cyber world full of penguins! lol
What I do know is that the people around me that are continuous digitally connected, are quite anti social and seem to have lost their ability to connect with another human being on an emotional level. Sad to say, but there are numerous new fields of psychology that deal with these issues. Hum .... perhaps a PhD thesis?!
If I look at the last 25 years of my life, I left a stressful employment in the banking industry to pursuit a graduate degree in the history of religious philosophy. Afterwards, I opened a quilt shoppe! Hum.... what next?!
I know that I have not worked through these feelings. I mean, I know that it is not about the magazine closing but something much deeper. Right now, what I know for sure is that there are a lot of changes that will be taking place in my life soon .....
Take time to enjoy the moment! It is what life is all about, is it not?
