Two Worlds Collide
How I long for the 20th century.
The smell of books,
the quietness of a library.
The card catalog,
rows of drawers
of light brown oak,
filled with cards
telling me where to find
what I’m looking for.
not an easy search,
many deadends,
more questions,
sometimes changing the search,
sometimes questions unanswered.
How I love the 21st century.
iPhone, iPad, MacBook, Netflix,
Words with Friends,
the new social drawing game,
texting, Facebook, blogging, Pinterest,
sucked into the abysmal reality.
Everything and anything
one Google away.
Answers under my fingertips,
easy to find,
easy to get sidetracked.
easy to find my time sucked away.
I Google, read, Google, read,
Immersed in literacy, reading on my Kindle,
beeped away by
beeped away by
the evil doubleteaming pair,
the iPad and the iPhone--
the bell of the uninvited visitor.
I must answer the door
to the virtual world.
This virtual reality
is the new
reality.
Monopoly, Scrabble, Life,
Who needs a board—
There’s an App for that
How I miss the time,
journaling was in a spiral notebook.
Playing games involved a board,
with the family sitting at a table,
everyone present,
here and now.
How do I keep myself
in the here and now,
in my world of virtual reality,
filled with distractions.
These are the questions our children will not have. Is that good or sad? The other day in a restaurant I watched while a barely two-year-old child not speaking in complete sentences yet took her mother's iPhone and played like a pro. It is a new world. Like you, I still like my games to come with a board and my library to smell like books. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteI feel we are living at a crossroads in time. Like the printing press invention, and the invention of the car. I too am torn because my worlds collided.
ReplyDeleteYes, I often feel like I have a foot in each world...don't know which way to go.
ReplyDeleteI am reading, The Shallows, right now. You could have teamed up with Nicholas Carr by the looks of your poem. I am not fighting the technology but enjoying the feel of a good book in my hands and love the fact I can find anything I need and download it from the warmth of my home using the Internet.
ReplyDeleteI love your commentary on our world then and now. It is so incredibly easy to get sucked in by all our toys. I actually cringed a little at how many devices I brought to stay connected while on vacation. I might need to inhabit space on vacation where there is no cell phone reception and no internet connection. Having those capabilities make it too darn easy to "connect", whatever that means today.
ReplyDelete