Years ago, the biggest question in my first innocent recollection was, "How does a thermos know how to make liquids put inside of it, hot or cold?" Then at the age of six I was plagued by the query of, "Where do the voices come from that emerge from the radio. Is it a very small family living in there? And folks making music on little tiny instruments who live inside the box?"
Then I wondered if there were other little people inside the traffic lights to shine their red and green flashlights through their windows to help us all be safe...I had a friend tell me they were the cousins of the people who live inside the
TV box in your livingroom who change the scenery and quickly put on different costumes as you turn the knobs. This made perfect sense to my seven year old mind, and I guess as the years passed the people in the boxes painted themselves colors because they got tired of looking so grim in black and white. "Where do they go to the bathroom?" I said to myself. "Oh, How silly those questions are now that I have other concerns."
At least these wonders had to be hooked up to a wall with a wire that went somewhere to make them work. In those days anything that turned on with a switch, knob or button...had wires. Wires went all over the place running along inside your house then out to poles of power which were alongside the wires that connected to other homes so voices spoken into telephones could travel along to someone elses' wires and into their house. "That totally makes sense, right?" You are connected by wires which have information, voices, power to light up bulbs and appliances and also the pictures which run along wires to reveal themselves as you turn on a switch or knob. "My, how dumb I was to think little people lived in the boxes."
All got confusing again because they cut the wires and you could carry the handset to the phone around unconnected, "wireless" (All those folks who made wire, too bad for them, as they had to find other jobs.) And still somehow you could talk to the person you wanted by dialing their number. But did the voice travel through the air?...Yes! they say. But I say, It must be wizardry and magic to tell a message in the air how to know which house to land upon and allow it to hook up with the correct person. (Must be like the thermos.) Then I thought, "Do the air messages bump and collide with other messages and pictures as they travel in the air. So many are up there travelling around how can they get to the right place?" After a while you didn't even have to be near the receiver and you could put the phone into your pocket and go mow the lawn. Just think, "That message knew you were outside cutting grass...Wow!")
Along came pagers who were for doctors and drug dealers and people who had the money to pay for a device that buzzed and informed of a phone number or a person who needed their attention. These were important people who had special messages come through the air by trickery to land in the small box they carried...and I was sure there was a little man with palsy who ran around inside to make it wiggle and let the person with the "box on their belt" know they were needed. ("I can blame those silly thoughts on the fact that during this time I had five children in our home and claim half my brain had gone amiss.")
When computers became the "thing", the world wide web was soon to follow...web what? Like Charlotte's web and spiders? "Well sort of," my Microsoft Padowan son Patrick would explain, and then launch into a detailed explanation of how the different parts of the computer needed to talk to each other. (I never let him know I was thinking in my middle-aged innocence, "So are we back to having little folk inside a box talking to each other?")
Cell phones and texting are the worst advances to arrive in this century, and in my estimation are "The Devil", invented to make we, more seasoned citizens, feel like dolts. But the worst is using these instruments to talk and text messages while driving, causing many a problem, and traffic tickets. I have also seen young people sitting next to one another who feel they must text each other rather than speak, and I believe soon, like our appendix, our vocal chords will be obsolete!... I have gotten on buses in Seattle that are more quiet than our Church during the passing of the Sacrament as the riders busily tap away on their phones and I-pads. (Please see previous blog, "I'm not in OZ", about our trip to Washington)
Downloading bits and bites through the magic that happens in the air; games, maps, school work, movies and inconsequential information can clog the phone and the mind...too much information can overload and confuse or kill, quicker than any accident.
Streaming TV shows and movies is a mystery that goes far beyond the realm of my grey cells to comprehend. I have
given up trying to understand because instead of the old days of going to a theater and having the guy up above you in the projector room turn the switch so the film rolls. A person can now (through the air, mind you) tell the TV box in your house to let some other person or machine very far away start up the reel of film you want to see, and have it pop up for you to view...or if you want...on your phone, if you are bored, and have the time to watch, most likely while waiting in line to pay for your groceries. (When else would you have the time to watch a movie on your phone) and how 'bout the fact that without a wire you can play a game with some stranger in another land far far away who speaks a dialect of Swahili. Hmm, I guess that's best because if the person in Africa or Taiwan does the happy dance because he is the winner and claims victory in front of his friends, no one in your vicinity need know you lost the war, or the journey, or the quest or whatever.
How do it know?...I am beginning not care one little bit...or is it simply Alzheimer's kicking in?
