Me vs. The World

For all the complaints I've written about the American media and questioning the true "freedom" of such (have you seen who owns the media companies? Only a handful... hmmm), it sure pays to have the Internet wide open and fancy free to search most anything my heart desires. While my IP address is probably on a government watch list because I've pinged al Jazeera, thanks to the Patriot Act, I still embrace the fact that I can visit the site whenever I want. Not only that, but where else would I have been able to find a dependable moving company by utilizing such tools as MovingScam.com?

Now comfortably seated among the many boxes I still need to unpack in Pennsylvania, I get to reflect on a time when there was no TV or Internet available for news delivery. In the hours before the movers arrived with our 7,100 lb. load, I sat on the floor in our townhome, sitting in eerie silence while I caught up with my transcription work. I had no Internet connection or TV, and was still new to the area that I did not get the newspaper, and so only had the opportunity to look out the window and see what was going on. I could figure out the weather: Sunny, humid, promising a warm day with perhaps a chance of showers later on because of the mugginess. I met my new neighbors, who kindly welcomed me to the neighborhood and chatted amicably with each other, thus demonstrating to me the kind of folks who lived in a neighborhood such as this.

As I've mentioned before, I think most Americans are starting to realize that we can obtain news sources on our own rules, on our own time. No more scrambling to finish dinner before the 6 o'clock news; no more rolling out of bed early to catch Good Morning America before the long morning commute. No more talking heads having to feed us the information we can oh-so-aptly get at our fingertips when we want to.

The individualization of America has been a long time coming, with the boom of self-transportation and now the ability to live and function effectively from our Internet connections. Sometimes I wonder if this kind of fulfillment also stands in the way of how we function with the rest of the countries on the globe. As we sink further into our couches, laptops and cell phones readily available, how further do we sink away from the rest of the people on this Earth who don't have that luxury? Sure, we can connect with any corner of the world, but even that limitation is show by the frustrating inability for us to deliver the $100 laptop to folks in need, the seeming "independence" that we build from our dependence on the Internet, and the mere fact that there are people out there who live off the fat of the land alone, still, in 2008. It's hard to believe, if you think about it. How many different versions of the Ages can we see with a trip around the world? Even in Central Pennsylvania, the ultimate Amish country, you can find a way of life that even our grandparents don't remember.

So upon my first day in our new townhome, I sat on the floor and wondered what life was like before the Internet; kind of like how parents try to remember what life was like before the kiddies showed up. But we also have to remember some folks don't even know what life is like *after* the Internet. The fact that I can peruse the Internet freely seems like a moot point now, thinking about how my life would have been different if I were born to a parents of a small African tribe, or perhaps an Amish family as one of many children who learn to function without the modern, foreign conveniences that humankind has gone on to discover. However many steps you and I might take into the future of human livelihood, perhaps we should try to remember those who keep their feet planted in ways of old, but also do not ever worry about what would happen if they lost power, couldn't pay the cable bill, or pined for a Wal-Mart in their neck of the woods.