“First

To Log In, First To Log Out

People

born in the mid-to-late 1970s are the last generation of humans on the planet

to have grown up without the internet. Social scientists call them the Last of

the Innocents. In his book The End of Absence, Vancouver writer Michael Harris

calls people who grew up prior to the popularisation of digital culture

“digital immigrants” — they have lived both “with and without the crowded

connectivity of online life.”

Soon

no person on earth will remember what the world was like before the internet.

There will be records, of course (stored in the intangibly limitless archive of

the cloud), but the actual lived experience of what it was like to think and

feel and be human before the emergence of big data will be gone.

The

demise of the Last of the Innocents will mean the loss of an entire plane of

human experience — the time when, faced with long hours of nothing to do, our

attention was allowed to wander; when there was time for reflection and

introspection and devoting attention to people we were actually with; when idle

summer nights could be spent in the yard catching fireflies and days would be

spent lying in the grass looking for faces in clouds. – The Guardian”

You

can read the whole article here: http://bit.ly/2TRpCAz

Not the river I mentioned but another like it, in Yala National Park, Sri Lanka

Dear

God! How true that is!!! I am so grateful that I am one of the ‘Innocents’. And

I can still recall what it was like to lie in the sand of a riverbed on a dark

night, looking up at the stars and wondering if what I was seeing was still

there. I didn’t even have a wristwatch because those were rare and, in any

case, I was too poor to afford one. Such beautiful days. I recollect this when

today, thanks to big data my words are transmitted all over the world to places

that I have never been to and probably never will. I have seen both worlds.

Countries where my podcasts are downloaded….what’s with Greenland, eh!!

First

a disclaimer: Nostalgia alert: Not everything old is or was good. Not

everything new is or was bad. But nostalgia feels so good. Enjoy and keep the

salt handy.

In

the world before plastics, glasses were made of glass, or copper or silver and

water tasted better in them. Bottles were transparent glass or opaque ceramic.

But both were breakable and did. Plates were ceramic beautifully painted. Also,

breakable and did. We also had steel plates which didn’t break but were less

classy. Buckets and tubs were unbreakable, made of copper or galvanized iron

and made a loud clang when you put them down and dropped the handle. So, you

were careful to put the handle down gently. 

Shopping

bags were cloth, washed and reused until they wore out and then served as dish

and polishing cloths until they vanished. Chairs were wooden or metal – some

foldable, some not. All heavy and unstackable. So, when plastic bottles,

plates, cups, buckets and tubs and above all plastic bags came to be, we were

thrilled out of our minds. Transparent like glass but doesn’t break? Buckets

and tubs lifting which didn’t break your back? Chairs that could be stacked and

put away when you didn’t need them? Shopping bags that you could print your

label on and which the customer could use for other things or simply throw

away? No need to wash and dry and reuse. Truly a vision of convenience heaven.