Blitherings

We go and keep on going
Until the object of the game seems to be
To go and keep on going.

We do and keep on doing,
Until we do without knowing,
Without feeling.

Is there no time to stop and reflect?
Is there no time to stop?
Is there no time?

If we stopped, would we keep on going?
If we reflected would we keep on doing what we do?
For, what we have done and where we have gone,
Is dissolved into oblivion
Or, strung on the meaningless chain of half remembered this and that

If there is not reflection,
In all our doing,
Have we done anything?
In all our going,
Have we gone anywhere?
-Author Unknown

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• Buy my bike trainer… attempt two…
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  You really DO want it… #

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Read this in a recent e-mail. I laughed, I cried, I prayed… well… not really, but you’ll get the picture.

It is raining, and the little town looks totally deserted.
Times are tough, everybody is in debt and everybody lives on credit.
On this particular day a rich tourist from the East is driving through town.
He enters the only hotel in the sleepy town and lays a hundred dollar
bill on the desk stating he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs in order
to pick one to spend the night.
As soon as the man walks up the stairs, the hotel proprietor takes the
hundred dollar bill and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher.
The butcher takes the $100 and runs down the street to pay his debt to
the pig farmer. The pig farmer then takes the $100 and heads off to pay his debt to
the supplier of feed and fuel.
The guy at the Farmer’s Co-op takes the $100 and runs to pay his debt to
the local prostitute, who has also been facing hard times and has lately
had to offer her “services” on credit.
The hooker runs to the hotel and pays off her debt with the $100 to the
hotel proprietor, paying for the rooms that she had rented when she
brought clients to that establishment.
The hotel proprietor then lays the $100 bill back on the counter so the
rich traveler will not suspect anything.
At that moment the traveler from the East walks back down the
stairs, after inspecting the rooms.
He picks up the $100 bill and states that the rooms are not
satisfactory…… Pockets the money and walks out the door and leaves town.

No one earned anything.

However the whole town is now out of debt, and looks to the future with
a lot of optimism.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is how the United States Government is
conducting business today.

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Since purchasing an iPhone about a year and a half ago, my daily life has changed in countless ways. I always have a map on hand, so it’s very difficult to become lost. However, now I find that I am utterly dependent on the map application, whereas, I used to have a great sense of directional memory. Similarly, there is a theoretically boundless source of information at my fingertips with this incredible little piece of technology. Yet, since I can simply look up the answer to any question I might have, I have noticed that my ability to retain information has suffered.

This is both interesting and frightening to consider. Humanity has never has such an abundance of free knowledge available to them, but rather than developing intellectually along with technological advancement, all I see is a growing dependence on technology. Having an iPhone “sidearm” at all times is sort of like having a second brain. It’s an entire world of applications that I use daily. E-mail, maps, internet, social networking, games, news, radio, financial tracking, and even a simple flashlight to keep me from stubbing my toe during my middle of the night journeys to the bathroom. All of this in ONE pocket sized device. Convenient, no? Suppose, however, that the battery goes dead or WORSE the device is broken. I have now lost access to all of the applications that have become a considerable part of my daily life. Whatever would I do!?! I would immediately jump in my car and purchase another one as fast as possible, of course!

Recently, I have taken to reading books on the iPhone as well. What could be more convenient than having ALL of my books allocated to the same device that I have with me at all times? I admit that this convenience has allowed me to do more reading than ever before. I started with the free books available on the Stanza application, but quickly switched over to Kindle. Kindle is an application created by Amazon that allows you to purchase all sorts of best sellers and have them sent directly to your iPhone.

I just finished reading American Shaolin: Flying Kicks, Buddhist Monks, and the Legend of Iron Crotch: An Odyssey in the New China. This book is AWESOME… from a guy’s perspective… I think a lot of women would be unable to identify with the author and may invariably misunderstand the subtleties of his character… but anyway. I REALLY enjoyed the book and read the entire thing in less than a week! This is a feat that I have never accomplished with a printed book, but I was able to find 10 minutes here, an hour there, 2 hours while waiting for my wife to finish shopping for cloths, etc. This was only made possible, because I had the book in my pocket at ALL times!

I found myself telling many of my guy friends that they HAD to read this book… but then I had to explain that they couldn’t borrow the book when I was done, because the book was confined to my iPhone… and there is no way I could relinquish it for a period of time sufficient for them to read the whole book. This struck me as terribly INconvenient, and also as a cruel marketing tactic! Here I was feeling all great about myself because I was able to get away with spending $9.99 on an e-book that would otherwise cost $14.99 in paper form. Not only was I saving money, but I was being green! But wait! Once I finished the book, I could not lend it to anyone else to enjoy. Now I have an entire novel in “bit” form that I will not, in all likely hood, ever read again! This realization has put me in a terrible quandary about the benefits of e-reading. Do I continue to purchase e-books in order to make my reading experiences more efficient, or do I sacrifice efficiency for the ability to share the pleasure of a good book with others?

What do all of you other device carrying folks think? Have you had similar experiences? How are you becoming more efficient by means of convenience, but at the sacrifice of independence and selflessness? Is it still worth it?