Dummifying the Future Generation

Hello All,

Wow, today...  I finally took a nap during the afternoon.  The last few weeks of my life have been so hectic...  starting the cafe business, crazy busy at my regular job, and well, life in general.  I don't know if I am coming or going...  sleeping or awake...  what day of the week it is...  what hour of the day...  and FORGET about making it to the bathroom as regularly as I should!  I am NOT kidding!  I haven't had any accidents yet but man, oh man...  not sure what I do is good for my health.

Anyway... it is amazing how invigoration a new challenge can be as exhausting as it has been too.  It has kept my mind out of the skeleton closet and other negative things I could be focusing on and so as strange as it might seem, I've gotten some therapy out of the madness! 

Well, I just wanted to put my thoughts on paper about one of the biggest concerns I have, not only as a parent, but as a human being...  and one who will grow old in this future society (OR NOT according to 2012).  I have always been blessed with the ability to remember things on sight.  Some people call it a photographic memory...  some call it luck, smarts...  I call it convenient and vitally necessary.  If I could not remember the facts and figures of my everyday comings and goings...  I would go crazy.  I often cannot delete anything from my mind.  If I see, hear, or have been taught something...  it takes a very long time to "discard" the info and it stays locked up in my database for quite some time.  For instance, when I was young, I had to constantly fill our paperwork for my parents, at the SSN office, at the Bank, at the DMV, at the INS...  just about every government office there existed.  Back then, there were no computers.  The best technology were faxes and so most things had to be brought in to the office to be handled and so since I spoke English, I got to do everything for my parents.  FUN!  I really got to know what people who work for Government offices were like at a very young age.  And even then, they pissed me off!!!  Excuse my French.  Anyway, to this day, I still remember all of their info in my head.  I can't seem to delete and or purge them out of my head.  ON top of that, I remember my info, my children's, and my husband's.  I remember most everyone's phone numbers by heart, but lately I've realized something...  if I instantly program them without first glancing at the number...  I have no idea. WOW!  This is a first!  You see, when I write a phone number down...  I typically can "see" the paper and what is written on it...  if I punched the number in myself at least once or twice, I remember the number.  But when I just program from the first call... I do not know what it is.  This scares me.  NOT that I have to remember EVERY contact's info in my phone, but what if?  I hear people end up in accidents or jail without access to their belongings (wallets, cell phones, etc) and they literally do not know one number off the top of their heads to call!  This wouldn't happen to me, but what about my children?  Thank the Lord that most of them have my acute sense of memory... so we may, as a whole...  never encounter any issues with this.  And my husband cannot, to save his life, remember most people's numbers.  So basically, through technology, we no longer have to know how to spell, write, calculate, or remember anything, EVER.  Through spell check, everything is corrected.  Through text messages, complete words are no longer in existence, LOL or SMH.  Took me a while to catch on but even I am guilty of it now.  And through Excel and other accounting features on line with our banks, we no longer have to balance a checkbook.  AND of course, with cell phones which are ironically called smart phones now, we no longer need to remember dates, events, or numbers.  They are getting smarter and we are getting dumber...  bottom line.  I just recently saw the movie "Surrogates" and "Gamer" in which we are still supposed to be the "OPERATOR" within the society... but not actually going to do any of the "dirty" work and always look great doing it.  But I don't know... it was refreshing to see Bruce Willis as his handsome, aging, and ever balding self than that plastic replica of himself at the beginning of the movie that he portrayed.

All of the biggest technological inventions created by man- the airplane, the automobile, the computer - says little about his intelligence, but speaks volumes about his laziness.  ~Mark Kennedy

Love,

Me