Incidental Steps giant leaps

On one hand, life is very important and sacred. Life is a gift and one which should be valued. It is amazing that out of the remnants of the big bang, some cosmic dust got together, and life began. For me each life has eternal significance. Yet on the other hand, we know that each of the individual twist and turn in our lives are relatively unimportant. Not being one who keeps a diary, I can't tell you if September 10th, 2001 was a good day or a bad day for me. I do know that many things changed in the world September 11th, 2001. Some days are important, but many get forgotten.

Decisions are the same. Each and every day I make hundreds of decisions which have little lasting impact- what to wear, when to eat, what time to go to bed. Other decisions though have life changing impact- deciding to buy a house, run for office, or getting married. Sometimes we don't know that seemingly simple decisions will be wonderful decisions like deciding to go to a dance where one meets their spouse. 

I guess what I am saying is that we don't the impact of the things that we do. Sometimes a kind act that we do will have little lasting impact. Other times though it can make a real difference in life. We just don't know.

And because we don't know whether a day or an event will have lasting impact or not, doesn't it mean we should try to make a difference. Whether or not we can change the world, shouldn't we try to offer something positive into the mix. It might get lost in the midst of one of those thousands of days that are just a blur. It might seem quite insignificant in the midst of the myriad of things we do each day. But maybe, just maybe a little bit of good thrown into the mix might be a game changer. One simple word of encouragement to someone might be all they need to take on a massive project. A smile at the right time might be all the time it takes to change the world. Our efforts are never in vain. Blessings.

A little bit of equality

I enjoy travelling. I like seeing new cities, exploring new paths, and coming in contact with different cultures. But one thing I don't really like are the flights to get there. Oh I don't mind flying per se. I trust the airlines and the pilots to get me to my destination safely.  But I hate the cramped seats, people who try to cram everything they can into overfilled storage bins, and the fewer and fewer services that one gets while flying in economy class.

I saw a video recently of someone travelling first class on Emirates Airlines. They had their own compartment. They had their own bar in case the flight attendants could not get there quick enough to fill their orders. Their seat folded down into a bed with duvet covers. When they awoke they even got to use the shower on the plane.

Flying teaches us that there is a difference to class. Those who can afford it are treated to great luxury. Those who can't afford it are treated like cargo.

I grew up being taught by my father that all people were created equal. Everyone was the same no matter what their background. I hold strongly to this belief. No one deserves a place higher up in the queue than someone else. Everyone should be treated the same.

Not everyone thinks that way. They believe that if you are born in a certain place, or to a certain station in life, or have the right skin colour, or were male,  then you deserved better treatment then others. Thankfully not everyone is as extreme as Pauline Hanson but I think everyone in someway still separates the world into us and them. Even I, who have always been taught that everyone should be treated equally- I still secretly feel that dog people are better then cat people. There I've said it.

But this week something happened where everyone is treated the same. The equinox happened and suddenly for one day at least, everyone shared in equal amounts of daylight and darkness. It happens twice a year. For us in Australia it means longer days and warmer weather lies ahead. For those in Canada it means the long dark winter is getting ever near. But for one day, everybody around the world is treated exactly the same.

Maybe that is a lesson for us. We spend too much time differentiating ourselves one from another. Maybe we can be like the sun on the equinox giving equal light and dark to everyone. We don't need to view the world in terms of us and them. Maybe cat people are ok.  Blessings.

 

Device or "de" vice

Many years back, I watched the movie Apollo 13. And I was shocked to see how primitive the technology looked. As I understand it, the computers on board the spacecraft had much less memory then our average cell phone of today. Down on earth, the "computers" that helped to run the mission had much more in common with electric typewriters then with the average lap top of today. The computers as portrayed in the movie were heavy monstrosities that were very slow and were so expensive that no one ever thought that we would have personal computers, cell phones, iPads everywhere.  So much has changed since 1969.

I have had computers for 30 years now. The changes have been immense. My first computer was an Atari 130XE. It quite amazed me. With its 128 kilobytes of Ram, it seemed so modern. Each time I wanted to make a document, I would have to load the programme in to the 5.25 inch floppy drive (that's 13.3 cm floppy drive), wait 10 minutes as I heard the programme load, then take out that disk, insert a data disk, wait a few minutes more and then finally I would get to work on my document. Then it would take another five to ten minutes to save the file once I was finished. If I wanted to use a different programme, I would have to insert another disk and wait another 10 minutes for it to boot up. Now, I complain that it takes two minutes for my computer to boot up and do everything that I need to do and that 500 billion bytes of information is not quite enough.

I know that I am a technology nerd. No I would not be able to dismantle and reconstruct a computer, but my electronic devices are part of my life. I store my photos on them. I store my music. I keep my appointments on my devices. I hardly remember anybody's telephone number anymore because they are stored in my contacts. I work from my computer. I reach an audience blog from three different continents because of my computer. I play games on my computer. Without my devices, I would feel lost.

But I was quite shocked that a tv report said that the average child spends 21 hours a week glued to their electronics. Considering there are 168 hours a week, that is 1/8 of their life. And if they sleep just 8 hours a night- that means that 21 hours out of their 112 hours of awake time is spend on games and social networking. That is just mind boggling. Parents now threaten children with loss of electronics time whereas in my day it may have been loss of tv privileges or being sent to your room.

I do not want to go back to a world where everything is done with pen and paper. Oh sure thanks to good education, I can still add, subtract, multiply and divide accurately and quickly. But it is so much easier with a machine. My handwriting has always been indecipherable and slow. Using a keyboard is so much easier. The ability to connect with others is so much easier now then it was before. But I don't think it is right to live life tethered to a machine, especially when you are young and have so much of the world to explore. Blessings