Good morning and Happy Valentine’s Day!
This is my first post to my first-ever web log, or blog. Thanks to Living Lake Country and our web editor for this opportunity to belong to the online community.
Back when I was a pony-taled scribbler plopped in an oversized desk with pencil and paper at Nakoma School, who knew that something like the Internet was coming? Who could predict that one day you could type your deepest thoughts into an electronic whirlygig, and then with the click of hand-held flibbertigibbit, wireless and ergonomic no less, zap them through the Light Fantastic? The same light “that yonder window breaks.” Yes, the same light under which Romeo romanced Juliet on her balcony is the same heavenly presence, the same starry atmosphere, that presides as we “text” each other, chat on our space-age phones, e-mail pictures of precious moments in our lives, and speak to the world in blogs like these.
But are these the best or worst of times?
I know electronic devices are handy and quick, and if you post an argument about needing one in an emergency, you win. (But come back soon and post again, please. I’ll be the first to admit I’ll make other statements that are just as easy to refute.)
But are electronic gadgets taking the place of what’s real? Is the “virtual world” winning? Will we soon ignore the impact of fresh air on our spirits? Or deny the soothing feel of grass under our feet? Or forget the soul-nourishment that accompanies an act of kindness to a family member? Or even a stranger?
(Okay, if you post that listening to a ‘80s hair band on your teen’s MP3 is enormously superior to hearing another one of Uncle Fred’s corny firehouse jokes at the Christmas dinner table, you score another point. I’ve heard a lot of firehouse humor, too.)
I recently wrote a play called “The Valentine Lines,” and in it, Cupid is despondent because he’s been rendered ineffective. Electronic devices and the world’s fascination with them has left him out in the cold. His wings have been recalled, his arrows are dull, and he’s worried for human kind because of its lack of face-to-face communication.
Hera, the goddess of marriage, “helps” him through his dilemma -- if you can call what a self-absorbed goddess does in her own best interest as help. But the point is thus: Quick scribbles into a machine, or having an enormous friend list on a social website, or focusing our attention into an electronic gadget rather than the person standing in front of us, doesn’t necessarily result in better communication.
It provides opportunities for more ways to communicate, but it’s up to us to make the communication effective, courteous, thoughtful and well-reasoned.
Shakespeare never could have predicted that his plays and most famous lines would resonate forward into the modern world. He wrote about character traits and behaviors that make us unmistakably human. Just like the sun, moon and stars, those traits don’t change. What’s desirable -- kindness, selflessness, courage and compassion -- has remained desirable, and what’s despicable has pretty much remained so, despite what Michael Douglas’ Gordon Gekko character tried to tell us about greed in the movie “Wall Street.”
Yes, Shakespeare wrote about what’s true in the soul, and he penned his works under the light and presence of the same heavenly bodies that stand guard over us now. But ghosts were more real to him than the Web Fantastic. What else will change in this world? What other devices will facilitate communication in the future?
And will we be ready?