Tuesday, October 24, 2023

YOU WILL LAUGH, EVENTUALLY

 

Some months back, my trusty old computer stopped functioning. I learned that I shouldn’t trust a machine, which had the audacity to take with it much of the functionalities I had built in to suit the way I work, and many of my contacts.

 

I didn’t lose any work, because I had my files and photos backed up on a USB drive. Setting a second computer properly took time and this computer is not yet up to the one that was.

 

I can look back now, and see that I survived. There are (much) worse things.

 

But, at that time, I felt so lost and disconnected that I lamented to DD how I long for the innocent days of my childhood, when connecting meant seeing someone in person or writing a snail mail letter.

 

Her response, pasted here from Messenger (my phone worked):

“…Do you miss your boyhood in surrey, romping with your school chums in the fens and spinneys?

And then she sent this link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?fbclid=IwAR1dU0AIpsn42MFtviaSRQhaDPb2Kjl2sSfGP9AaCuQ1AZcrkEKiJS-Cmk8&v=PM8WPZtnBAw&feature=youtu.be

 

It’s a brilliant section from an old episode of Frasier, a TV show we used to watch when she was but a youth. Her comment was a quotation from one of the characters in it, and her pointed reflection on the uselessness of nostalgia for “simpler times.”

 

I laughed. It made a difference.

 

Eventually, we laugh at so many things we had experienced as important.

There’s no point in lamenting what isn’t anymore.

 

Meanwhile, back up your computers, everyone.

4 comments:

  1. Yes to a more innocent time. And good idea to back up the machines.

    ReplyDelete
  2. People who have grown up only digitally have no experiential understanding of an analog life. Those of us who know analog as well as digital can’t help but have some nostalgia for a less speedy time, a time when we talked to each other rather than texted. On the other hand, I love being able to instantaneously communicate with friends around the world. Aerograms took ages to reach people in other countries, but more thought went into handwritten or typed letters than into quick emails. We can appreciate the two ways, those of us who know them both, and also be critics of them, if we want to!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Some people complain about computers, yet they become upset when their business needs aren't met in an instant. The computer makes so much possible.

    Love,
    Janie

    ReplyDelete

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