Technology; helping or hurting?

This blog, if seen by many, could easily become the scene of a long fight, so please let me preface this by saying I’m not looking for the right answer here, just thinking out loud and exploring possibilities.

What has technology done to our society? Most would immediately answer with ‘improve it’. I would have to agree in general, but then I have to wonder about some of the things that would be different, or maybe non-existent if it hadn’t been for certain advances.

First, medical advances.

We now have the technology to keep a baby alive when they’re born long before they should be. I think it’s wonderful that fewer parents are made to suffer at losing a child, but what if things happen for a reason? I hate to say it, but pre-mature babies and babies with severe birth defects would have had a much lower chance of survival 100 years ago, or even 50 years ago. These babies, while they have the potential to lead full and happy lives, carry with them an extremely high risk of complications throughout their entire lives. Many end up being people with disabilities and special needs. Back in the 1800’s, people with those probably were put in institutions. I certainly would never recommend doing that today since we know so much more about everything, but my point here is that back then there were so few with those types of complications and disabilities that they were all able to fit into these institutions.

I just did some quick google searching and came up with some crazy stats. Some are for America and some for the entire population, but either way, they’re startling:

5-10% Learning Disabled

2.5% Cognitive Deficiency (mental retardation is most common term)

1 in 1000 born with the most severe type of spina bifida, 70-90% of those also have hydrocephalus

25.2 million adult American either cannot see at all or have difficulty seeing despite wearing glasses or contacts

2% deaf

7% hard of hearing

1 in 150 with autism

3-5% ADHD, not to mention those with other emotional or behavioral disorders

I would never take a child away from a parent, but how many of these would have made it 100 years ago? Would have gotten the chance to go to school? Get a job? Be married?

And what about cancer? Cell phones are suspects, as are all the chemicals we have in our atmosphere, created by us every day. I’m sure cancer has been around for ages, but the prevalence of it certainly is much higher now. Did we do this to ourselves?

Next up: Entertainment

Yeah, it’s really cool that we have all these TV channels and an endless stream of movies to choose from on Netflix, or at Red Box or Blockbuster, but what if it all disappeared?

100 years ago, people got by with a lot less in their lives, they did things the slow way, and just about anything your family would need done, you could do yourself. I think a big reason for this is because there was no box to waste away in front of. If you were bored, sure shootin’ you could clean the barn, fix the fence, gather the eggs, milk the cow, help butcher the pig, smoke the deer meat, or just go fishing for your supper. Women knew how to cook, sew and clean. Men knew how to build, replace and do all manner of manual labor. That doesn’t mean men and women never traded places. Men cooked for themselves when they needed to and women would find a way to get shelter for their children. Not only that, but people made their own clothes too. It wasn’t important to have Justin Bieber or some other icon of it, it was important that it kept you warm in the winter, or cool in the summer.

I have read a few books on DIY tasks. Most of it seems over my head and out of my league, but then I remember that there were people around who could do most if not all of those things with their eyes closed.

When I mention this, most people tell me that life was so much harder back then, to which I reply, “So your life is easy?” Seems every new creation brings about the good and the bad. We have electricity and light bulbs now, but if the world suddenly had none, would you be able to find a light source at night? Could you make a button lamp? Do you even have a spare button?

Back then, kids had a ton of fun just running around together, talking about life, looking at the clouds, or playing with a simple ball and stick. Today, our kids and teens are bored and cranky if they don’t get in their 5 hours of TV, video games and internet. Often, it’s even more than that as the average American watches 4 hours of TV a day. That doesn’t even include internet and games. For more stats on this, visit http://www.csun.edu/science/health/docs/tv&health.html

Next: appliances

Yeah it’s quick and easy to pop in that microwave meal or something else just as simple, but what happens to our bodies when we do this every single day?

The preservatives, the pesticides, and genetic engineering of our fruits and vegetables. All of these unnatural substances end up in your body. I know way too many people who don’t even know how to cook mac and cheese. That’s pretty hard to screw up. Then again, I watched someone try to cook spaghetti the first time and he didn’t realize that you have to stir it. It came out in one large, gloppy, burnt lump. I am a fan of the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Just reading about the things they ate make my mouth water. And sure, we have a lot of variety now, which is fantastic, but how much food do we waste every year? I’ll tell you; 474.5 pounds of food per year per person. Based on the current population in America, we waste 147,522,848,109 pounds of food a year in our country alone!! If we only ate fresh foods, maybe raised our own for at least part of it and let nothing go to waste, imagine what we could save. Imagine what the economy could be like without all that waste! Appliances help us re-heat our left-overs and cook different things, but have they really made our lives easier, or are we paying through the nose in taxes to compensate for the waste we create and the landfills we’re stuffing to capacity?

 

Food for thought. Let me know what you think, but please don’t attack me. This is a devil’s advocate post, not a personal opinion post. I have reserved my own opinions on these issues simply because I honestly don’t know that I have a strong opinion in either direction on these issues. Some of the specifics I feel strongly about, but as they’re all connected, it’s hard for me to make a final decision on any of it.

The religion of being good.

When I was young, I attended church every week with my parents. I was a member of the youth group and even attended a teenager CELL group. Some of my closest friends of those years were housed in that building.

Then I turned 18.

The number is hardly a number of consequence. That just happened to be the time my whole religion world came crashing down. A co-worker of my father’s had…well…let’s just say things did not work out in that business partnership. My parents have been forced to struggle financially ever since. Mind you, they are always doing just fine, but they are nowhere near the plush lifestyle of my early years. This was also about the time my parents were asked to leave there sunday school class because it made this dreadful person ‘feel uncomfortable’.

Next, I grew very close to someone I was in the band with. We were both in front ensemble, both very geeky, and both fairly smart (though I couldn’t hold a candle to his intelligence). Near the end of our senior year he confided in me. He was gay. That didn’t bother me at all. I had know plenty of people with whatever alternative life style you could think of, and I truly live my life doing my best to never judge someone. I had had my fair share of being called many things in my life that simply weren’t true (suck-up, teacher’s pet, brain, loser, geek, freak, never good enough) and I didn’t want anyone else to feel the way that I had felt because of my judgments. Back to the point, I was apparently the first person he confided in. And I never told anyone his secret. However, when he became more comfortable with himself, he started asking questions within his church. He was basically told that gay people were not allowed in that church.

Lastly, the end of my church-going days also coincided with the end of my high school career. The pastor I had grown to love and respect would be moving soon, and we would be getting someone new. This part isn’t as important, but it’s worth noting. What is important is that every single sermon I hear for my last two months in that church was about tithing. I sat for 20 minutes a week listening to what a terrible person I was for not giving my money to an organization that i had dedicated my heart and time to my entire life. I know they need money to stay afloat, but it was getting to overkill. The straw that broke the camel’s back was when an elderly gentleman approached me after church one Sunday, dropped his hand on my shoulder, leaned inches from my face and said, “Did you tithe this week, young lady?” I had attended that church my whole life and had never even met that man. He didn’t introduce himself, just asked me. When I told him I didn’t have a job, he replied very gruffly that I should be tithing from my savings. I couldn’t believe it!! This man knew nothing about me!! That was the last day I attended services there.

I still think of myself as a good person. I’ve never done drugs, never gotten in trouble with the law. Never even gotten a speeding ticket. And as angry as some people have made me in the past, I have always done my best to not be spiteful or vindictive because I know that it can cause huge problems down the road. However, for those who attend church, they look at me as if I’m the worst heathen they’ve ever known simply because I don’t plant myself in a pew on Sundays, listen to someone tell me the stories I could tell in my sleep, and sing a few hymns with random people.

 

Has anyone ever noticed that religious people have a lot of trouble with others telling them not to judge?

Have you ever noticed just how judgmental and critical church-goers are?

 

I should state that this is not true of ALL religious people. There are plenty that are very good people that truly don’t judge others and don’t push their religion on others. Maybe I just had a bad couple of months in my young years, but I think it is my final decision to be a decent person and treat everyone with respect. I’ll let whatever divine power there is decided if that makes me worthy of happiness after death, whatever that may mean to you all out there.

12 Years later and no ring yet. Wanna know why?

I’m 24 years old. I’ve been with my boyfriend for 12 years. And yes, I meant boyfriend. Not husband, not fiance. Boyfriend.

Universal question: Why aren’t you married yet?!?!

Answer: Because we aren’t there yet.

I’m going to explain because someone once told me that my story is worth being told. He actually told me I should write a book on it, but I don’t think I could talk about myself for that many pages. I’m better at fiction and the stories of others, but here it goes.

Since I was in high school, I’ve watched friends and acquaintances get married, have children, get divorced, and generally have multiple relationships with totally random outcomes per person. I don’t want that, and neither does he.

We have been together since middle school. Granted, we broke up and got back together a few times, but in a way I feel like we are a little bit of a real life Cory and Topanga. For those who know what I’m talking about, there’s an episode where they nearly break up and there’s all kinds of unrealistic talk with parents and Feeny about why they feel the need to break up even though they love each other. The answer to that was “because you’re in high school”.

The human brain doesn’t fully develop until the age of 25. And yet, everyone is expected to know exactly what they want out of life by the time they turn 18. Now, I’m absolutely not saying that parents should support their kids til 25, but maybe there should be more exploratory options at the college level, or more careers that allowed people without degrees to work in the thick of it without needing the responsibility of being the head honcho, like an aide or an office assistant.

So, on Valentine’s Day just before I turned 18 when my boyfriend took me out to dinner and out of the blue opened a ring box, I panicked. Absolutely panicked. Part of me was elated at this offering of commitment, but another part of me knew that neither of us were settled in life and we shouldn’t have to be tied to any person or place until we had taken care of ourselves. That’s when he told me: it’s a promise ring. He told me what it was and since then we have been happy to be with each other, grow in our love for one another, and work through a lot of problems that, frankly, end many premature marriages.

While we were both in college, I made the decision, and he agreed, that I didn’t want to get married unless we were both able to support ourselves. Not only did I not want to support or be supported right off the bat in married life, but I also wanted the security in knowing that if one of us died, the other would be able to go on. I feel very strongly about this because I once knew a young woman who, on her one month anniversary called to check in with her mother on her way home to celebrate with her knew husband. The phone cut out, mom thought her phone went dead. 20 minutes later she was watching the news as they were featuring a deadly car crash in which they were not releasing names. However, the mother knew the shoe lying on the side of the road and had the unbearable task of calling her now deceased daughter’s husband to explain to him why she was late for their anniversary dinner. Sounds made up, right? It’s not, and I’ll be damned if fate puts either of us in a situation like that without some level of security.

We went through college together, but he hadn’t decided exactly what he wanted. While it was a point of frustration for me, I also knew that I’d rather marry a man who had fully grown up and was happy with his job rather than marry a man who had settled on something he just happened to do well. So, I graduated right on time. He’s planning to graduate this year and we’re both ecstatic. Most of you at this point are probably thinking that I know exactly when that magical question will be popped. You’d be wrong. Another one of my conditions is that I didn’t want to have even the slightest clue of when or where. I did tell him, however, that the day he proposes is the day I start planning, so he should keep that in mind. Studies show that couples who remain engaged longer than 18 months have a huge probability to never get married. I break-up isn’t inevitable, but marriage may never happen.

Lastly, and I feel that this is one of the most important things: relationships have to grow and grow and grow. Problems will always happen no matter how happy you are, but the ability to work through them is something you need to be confident you have before saying your vows. Marriage license or not, we have our disagreements. Everyone does. But I now have the assurance that whatever may come, we will be able to work through it. Too many people get married and end up having a disagreement, and then find themselves unable to work through it. Bam, divorce.

His mother talked me through a lot of rough times as I grew. One thing we once talked about was why we broke up and got back together so much in school. The answer was so simple, but I would never have seen it on my own. We were both growing, but at different times and rates. The beauty of it for us was that we never did anything that truly killed the relationship. Once again, we were able to work through things.

So now we’re living together; a transition that was surprisingly blissful and easy for the both of us. He’s about to graduate, and I’m working happily in a job that is a massive improvement from the one I left behind. A family is a definite possibility…really a hope, but we’re no longer in a rush to get there.

 

I wish more young people had the chance to experience this in their lives and to have the wisdom and support in their lives that we had as we grew. My family was always there, but his family taught me how to grow when I was young.

Hello world!

This is my first official blog post. I hope it finds you well.

In my life, I feel as though I’ve experienced a lot. While I’ve never been out of the country, I have seen quite a bit of our own. There are many places I’m sure I don’t remember, but there are many I do, so if you’d ever like to know if it’s worth a trip, feel free to ask.

I remember:

Boston

Mt. Rushmore (twice)

Badlands National Park

Crater of the Moon

Yellowstone

Yosemite

Devil’s Tower

Lincoln Memorial

Jefferson National Expansion Memorial (the St. Louis Arch)

USS Arizona Memorial

The Alamo

The Great Salt Basin

The Rockies

De Smet, SD

The Corn Palace

Disney World (twice)

Spearfish

Deadwood

Sturgis (not during the big event)

Circle B Ranch Chuckwagon

Reptile Gardens

Custer State Park

Crazy Horse Memorial

Wildlife Loop Road off of Needles Highway

Legion Lake (amazing walk/hike area)

Standing Rock Indian Reservation

McCrory Gardens

Wall Drug

Chicago

Washington State

Washington DC

The Smithsonian

Various Beaches and Cities in Florida

Various Cities and one beach in Texas

While having been many places, I’ve also experienced many things. I have had 4 surgeries, countless injuries, and a couple ‘autoimmune diseases’. I put the last in quotations because I have only heard them referred to in such a way when being questioned about eligibility for vaccinations (can’t get the active ones). While it may sound like a rough life, or even just rough moments, it has all been manageable with really minimal trouble.

I am happy with my life and am looking forward to the next step. Enjoy the rest of your weekend, world! I hope to hear from some of you soon!

-Teacher Lady