Time and Change
When you look back over the ages it is amazing to see how slowly things have changed. Cathedrals took several lifetimes to build, journeys would take weeks, even months depending on the distance and technological advances would sometimes take centuries. We seem to be caught up in a world now where everything changes on a daily basis.
There is an 8 year difference between one of my sisters and me and even then I can see valleys between the lands that we grew up in. Then I recall stories from my mother and grandmother and it seems like we were living in totally different countries, forget the valleys!
When I was a kid we never had a TV. As a special treat my dad would rent a projector and bring home cartoons on those big reels. It was always so exciting because we would take the painting off the lounge wall and set up the great metal box at the other end, waiting for the night to come so that the room was completely dark, like our own private cinema. Now kids sit glued to the TV, spending their young lives being bombarded with all sorts of rubbish.
The first time I used a computer I must have been about 7 and that was only because they were at school. There was no Windows, no fancy games or graphics and most certainly no Internet. Now you get so many different varieties and sizes and strengths and whatever other things go with computers and by the time you have it home it is already obsolete. Plus I reckon kids are learning to use computers around the time they are learning to speak these days. I am often put to shame when my little godson comes around....
The very first camera that we had was a polaroid and we had to be very careful about taking pictures because film was rather scarce. Then I got my own one which I cannot even remember what kind it was. I just remember that it never had a flash so I was given disposable ones for Christmas and Birthdays. This came in the form of a long slab that would be connected to the top of the camera with about 12 little bulbs that would crack when used, therefore only being able to be used once. Now I can snap away on my digital one to my hearts content, change it to sepia, black and white, add effects, delete this add that....
Mobile phones.....well! You needed an entire new handbag to carry those in when they first came out. Now you can get rid of the camera and computer and the TV because the mobile phone has all of these in one now.
When was the last time you received an actual letter....you know those things that people sit down and write on paper....with a pen....? Do kids get busted for passing notes in class anymore or do they just send text messages now? How does one manage to keep up with the times if the times cannot even keep up with themselves? How different were your childhood memories to those of others? Of your childrens? Has technology really changed our lives for the better or for the worse? If you could choose what period would you like to have grown up in?
There is an 8 year difference between one of my sisters and me and even then I can see valleys between the lands that we grew up in. Then I recall stories from my mother and grandmother and it seems like we were living in totally different countries, forget the valleys!
When I was a kid we never had a TV. As a special treat my dad would rent a projector and bring home cartoons on those big reels. It was always so exciting because we would take the painting off the lounge wall and set up the great metal box at the other end, waiting for the night to come so that the room was completely dark, like our own private cinema. Now kids sit glued to the TV, spending their young lives being bombarded with all sorts of rubbish.
The first time I used a computer I must have been about 7 and that was only because they were at school. There was no Windows, no fancy games or graphics and most certainly no Internet. Now you get so many different varieties and sizes and strengths and whatever other things go with computers and by the time you have it home it is already obsolete. Plus I reckon kids are learning to use computers around the time they are learning to speak these days. I am often put to shame when my little godson comes around....
The very first camera that we had was a polaroid and we had to be very careful about taking pictures because film was rather scarce. Then I got my own one which I cannot even remember what kind it was. I just remember that it never had a flash so I was given disposable ones for Christmas and Birthdays. This came in the form of a long slab that would be connected to the top of the camera with about 12 little bulbs that would crack when used, therefore only being able to be used once. Now I can snap away on my digital one to my hearts content, change it to sepia, black and white, add effects, delete this add that....
When was the last time you received an actual letter....you know those things that people sit down and write on paper....with a pen....? Do kids get busted for passing notes in class anymore or do they just send text messages now? How does one manage to keep up with the times if the times cannot even keep up with themselves? How different were your childhood memories to those of others? Of your childrens? Has technology really changed our lives for the better or for the worse? If you could choose what period would you like to have grown up in?
Photography Tips
MS Paint Art
Your points and pictures are well made.
You've posed some difficult questions, it's a tough one. I still do not have a mobile phone and don't want one.
Meanwhile I am forced to listen to all the drivel that other people go on with and the rude talker holds up the bus, still talking while they search about in the handbag for the money to pay the driver.
Text talk, not for me, the whole scene has gone crazy.
katyzzz
Kalikapsychosis
My best mate and I were recounting a story about how we chased each other around the suburbs after sneaking out one night. I think we were about 15. She goes - "..Then, I called you on my mobile..." and trailed off, a confused look on her face, something wrong? I grinned and said "Taz, mobiles werent invented then" she was shocked! "youre right man!"
I sometimes dream of the world grinding to an utter halt, and having to use the horses to get from a to b. I plan the trips out. Here to Sydney? A few days, if I want to rest the horses. Oh, take me back!
Mum's Word
We live in such a disposable society now. I'm 33 so I think I'm one of the last to grow up without computers, mobiles weren't big until I was in my 20's. We didn't have a second television in our household until I was in my teens I had to watch what my dad wanted to watch.
I remember at uni discussing an essay about how the television was the social destruction of the family. Even though everyone was in the same room, no-one was talking. I'd like to hear what this academic would have to say about television today.
Good post Ash.
Love & stuff
Mrs M
From The Home Front
Enviro Warrior
Dream Herald
Esoteric Bookshop
Great points, great read... aah the memories...
My kids think I'm ancient : I was born pre-digital enhancement, pre CGI. I was born in the days of the black disk (positively medieval)..*lol* I never had a mobile for how long? Unbelievable!
My husbands truck doesn't have power steering and I've had to drive it whilst his shoulder recovers, meaning he has my nice power-steered, automatic..(I'm going to cry)... *boohoo-hoo, sob* my caaaaaaarrrr! (I miss it so much)...
Anyhow, *tucking my tissue away and straightening my hair and skirt* I mentioned how hard it was to drive to my youngest (10 ).
"Not like my car," I said. "You just dial it."
"What's that Mum? Dial, I mean...?"
...
*chuckling*
Lilla~
Bohemian Hiphop
Japanese Jazz Funk
Optomystic Opportunism
I sometimes am annoyed at the fact that everything has changed so much in our lives, but get even further frustrated by the fact that it just keeps changing.
One day, the affluent will get a strong smack on the bee-hind and learn to accept the present and the best we can do with what we've got.
Hey, I might even do it myself...(the smack that is)
Ate senhora,
Opto
Australian Traveller
Flashes of memories
Mum's Word
Just kidding honey. Had a good tanty, get it all out and then have a pina colada.
Love & stuff
Mrs M
Stress Alive
Man Lessons
My son and his friends do not know what to do with a dial phone until it is demonstrated to them.
Great post. thanks.
Australian Traveller
Flashes of memories
Hi Katyzzz,
Yeah I`m not much into mobile phones myself...or phones in general actually. I only really have a mobile because I send texts to friends and seeing as most of them overseas it works out cheaper than calls...it really ticks me off with people who do not turn their mobiles off in the cinema...come on man 2 hours!?!
Hiya K,
Steady on there girl I`m only 27! However, I had the privilege of growing up in Africa where we are about 50 years behind the rest of the world so that says alot about my lack of technological 'things'
How great would it be just to spend a week in a different age? Watching them build cathedrals like in Pillars of the Earth, stroll down a country land with Tess, or lie in the trenches like in Faulks' Birdsong....ah I would love it! Bring on the time machine, purely for the spectator sport...
Hi Mrs M,
Yes I have returned....*lol*... and with no other screens open! I must admit I thought you were older...wise for your age...weird how we can conjure up an image of someone in our minds that can be so off reality...
It irks me how families stay glued to the TV instead of talking...probably because that is what my family does. We have never really been a chatty family...my father is very old school and was raised with no female influence which spilled over into our home for a while. Dinner time was time for eating not for talking so they were normally in silence...thank goodness that changed!! But the TV thing? Still there. Everytime I walk into their house it is on, even if no one is watching!!! I'm not much of a fan really.
Thanks for allowing the tantrum.....it feels great to let it all out....
Hiya Lilla,
I just have to ask...how do you pronounce your name? Is it LiLLA? as in Lily or it is LEELA as in...LEE...been meaning to ask for a while now...
Yes black disks?!?!?! Steady on there with the medievel bit.....I had some of those too! Loved them! We used to have one of those big old record players that i would lie in front of with my headphones plugged in drawing to my hearts content while listening. I mostly had kids stories on but as I got older I bought music. Then it became cassette tapes....my first radio was one of those oblong tape decks...and how cool did I think I was because I could record on it! *LOL* And if you had a double tape deck...well you were the bees knees!
Dial? As in clock dial? Like those things that used to tell the time before cellphones were invented with the digital numbers? Why would you have one of those in your car? (joking!)
Just a bit of useless information here but I was reading an article somewhere a little while ago about how watch sales around the world have decreased. I have linked this article, not the one that i read but basically saying the same thing (I don`t know the source so I don`t know how reliable their content is). Just another way in which the world is changing. Personally I have never really been a watch wearer, but that has nothing to do with cellphones...just never needed one...
*hugs* for the car
Hey Opto,
Yes it is crazy the rate of change that is occuring isn`t it? If generations before found it difficult to keep up with their kids and grandkids what chance do we have? I admire the intelligence out there...I just wish that it would be put to better use....
Welcome Deorre,
No one asked you what fruit or veg you would like to have been...hmmm I shall have to do the honours...
Lol about the dial phone! We used to have one of those....my dad would put a small padlock on the dial when he went to work so we couldn`t use it...I think I commented on one of your posts about tap dialling...
thanks all for your comments. I hope you enjoying the weekend wherever you all may be
have a great one
ash
I can't believe it. You had it so rough. I grew up with Neighbours, not so much TV, because that was all I used to watch. When I was a baby, I stopped crying when the Neighbours theme song came on. It calmed me. Strange, huh? And I still watch Neighbours religiously !!
I started with the internet when I was 12 !! That was late compared most, who began at 8 or 9. I had my first mobile phone at 10 years and back then, actual conversations in real life and passing notes was the shit !! These days I get SMS's: "Want to go to Torquay next monday? Let me know ASAP". It's ridiculous !!
So now in a bid to make my life simpler, I have renounced MSN messenger and ring people if I have something to say. I don't go on the internet every day anymore and I hand-write most things. I think it's important to distance yourself from the internet, because it can seriously become your whole life - very quickly !!
What a lovely post, ash ! You have brought back lots of lovely memories !! Hip Hip Hooray ! MEMORIES !!!
- Anthony
Australian Traveller
Flashes of memories
ahhhh that`s so cute
Gee I don`t think the internet had even been invented when I was 12...or certainly not introduced in my neck of the woods that`s for sure. We were like country bumpkins when we heard about the net...and I will never forget when I received my first text message. I was sooooo confused...I was 19 or 20 I think! LOL went to my boyfriend at the time and asked him what the envelope was.....he just laughed!
Yep!!! that`s for sure! I used to have to work on the internet so it became easy to just log in all day and be doing stuff other than work....I`m trying to wean myself off it but most of my friends live overseas and with time differences and call costs it is easier to send emails and talk on MSN......I have cut down though, like you are doing...and tend to write as much as I can instead of type or text.
Memories are wonderful things.......
But I'm hoping to work in Advertising in the near future, so my job will be selling people this useless crap. Don't bite the hand that feeds you, as they say. I love that comment about the text message:
That's brilliant !! I had a good chuckle about that one. And you're absolutely right. Memories are priceless..
Keep up the great blog Ashy !!
- Anthony
Australian Traveller
Flashes of memories
It`s not like we lived an overly simplistic life....we were very spoilt and had a lifestyle that not many people are fortunate to have - but those were just 'things' - and 'things' can be taken away in an instant and then what are you left with? I grew up around poverty - seeing people with nothing, living on the streets, getting out of the car and being swamped by children begging...it opens your eyes to a lot... I can`t compare Africa to anywhere I have ever been.... it is a land of such contrast, cruelty, hardship and a beauty that brings tears...
All the very best with your advertising job...I am sure you will work wonders...don`t forget us when you are a big Ad Exec hey!! Always remember your roots Anthony, always remember your roots (and a few donations to poor and struggling writers never went astray
have a good day
ash