Making Peace with Technology

I was walking to my bedroom to put away socks. 
                                                                                                            
I must walk by my study to get to the bedroom.

The pull of my laptop sucked me into my study, where I surfaced four hours later my head pounding and my hands shaky (I forgot lunch.) and after two conversations with the support desk in India with a software problem still remaining to be fixed. Also, I did ferret out some neat stuff on the Web.

Yes, that is my idea of a good time. While waiting for the eye drops to kick in, I decided to bump my original post and do this one instead.

Making Peace with Technology  


I do love technology. I put my hands on a computer for the first time when I was forty. Swear to you, it was love at first touch. Unlike other loves, some human, the passion just keeps getting stronger with every upgrade.

My idea of a really good day is to arrive at Fry's Electronics when they open, have lunch in Fry's little bistro, then spend the afternoon in Office Depot/Max. I don't get a lot of takers.

I'm going forward assuming that most of you don't feel this way. Understandable. We are the group born, not with a foot in both worlds, but with one foot squarely in pre-technology age and a third of our other foot in the technology age. That's a stance that will unbalance anyone.

Some of you detest technology and honestly believe it is the spawn of the dark side it. Some of you treat it as necessary evil. Some of you are neutral. Some of you are, like me, a little heartsick you were born too soon to be a child who could text before you could write your name.

The last statement appalls some of you. I can hear you from here. Hang in there. I've got some cool resources to share that can make your senior-and-divorcing life more engaging, efficient, interesting, and less frightening than you would think it could be.

If you continue to be recalcitrant about moving forward, I have one word for you, grandchildren. Learn to communicate with them in their mode or your will have no communication. People who say that e-mail and social networking ruined genuine social interaction are, dare I say it, wrong. Try telling that to people whose grandchildren live across country or on the other side of the globe. Technology allows them to see the soccer playoffs, the school plays, the wedding, the bar mitzvah, even grandchildren being born. Personally, that's on the far side of "too much information" for me, but you get the point.

No, they may not have a memory of your grandpa-scent, but at your funeral they'll tell the story of flipping a coin the loser being the one to tell you that LOL meant laugh-out-loud and not lots-of-love in a text message.

Think of the frequency you hear contemporaries say, "I never knew my grandparents. They lived wherever." If you let it, technology can insure that your grandbabies never make that statement about you.

So why did I bump the planned post for this? I realized I'd made an assumption about the people following this blog, and it was wrong. I got a couple of e-mails and calls from readers who never subscribed to a blog, didn't know what an RSS feed is, or don't know how to leave a comment. The readers I write for are the least likely to know such things.
 
I write this blog as my way of leaving a trail of bread crumbs as I muddle through the process of living as a newly divorced senior person. There wasn't much to assist me, so I'm making it up as I go along. I don't like to see good information go to waste and this is my way to share.

And yes, at 1:15 a.m. my socks are still in the hall where I dropped them.

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TechToolBox (Pages-See right-side bar under the poll) I see this as an ongoing feature of the Field Guide. It is a source of information, books, Websites, and links and products to boost your confidence as you launch your wee skiff into mostly unknown waters. But hey, you're already up to your eyebrows in unknown waters so they should be getting fairly familiar by now.


If you find a good tip or site, share it with us in this feature. Put the information in an e-mail http://www.aginganddivorcedafieldguide.blospot.com TechToolBox in the subject line.