IS BEING CONNECTED ALL IT'S CRACKED UP TO BE?

Long gone are the days when Rousseau and Thoreau waxed eloquent about the nobility of our savagery. Whereas they dreamed of the bliss of being isolated within nature, our modern world has seen to it that virtually no one will ever be isolated again. Like it or not, we are now and forever connected every minute of every day. Left here to speculate what wonders and/or wretchedness this shall mean. Consider the chronology of our connectivity.....

TELEGRAPH, TELEPHONE & RADIO

When the first telegraph line was laid between New England and Texas, Thoreau creatively asked: "But does New England have anything to say to Texas?"

The same question could soon be applied to Bell's telephones and Marconi's radios. By the early 20th C, nations like ours were so thoroughly cris-crossed with wires/lines/waves, locked closets were often the last refuge of the private person. Progress? Yes, in many wondrous ways; and yet what emerged was this genie of compulsion that we now had to stay connected all the time.

Curious to watch how the consensus-building power of these connectivity tools has recently been resisted, as each race and ethnicity among us demands its "own voice." The results include niche broadcasting and individualized courses of study, all emphasizing the Me much more than the We.

FLIGHT

Thanks to those intrepid Wrights, mankind at long last gained wings. In its early days, aviation was the new freedom. Freedom to fly and soar and hold the entire world in the palm of our flight tickets.

But once again, irony struck. Hijackings and terrorists eventually transformed flight into frenzy. What had once been a joy, has now become a gamble. Long lines ....intrusive security checks...endless tarmac delays... pinched services have all made air travel as much hassle as happiness.

Hard to explain this irony. What began as the blessings of global connectivity have somehow soured. I can still hear my skeptical old uncles grunting: "If God wanted us to fly he would have given us wings!"

TELEVISION AND INTERNET

The final touch on the canvass of connectivity has been television and the Internet. Right now there isn't a place or a person on the planet that can't somehow be reached by their invisible fingers. A marvel. A miracle. A masterpiece of human ingenuity.

And yet, the same-old, same-old. Television...? Still that vast cultural wasteland. The Internet...? Often becoming overwhelmed by the voices of the inmates to the asylum. Why is this so? Why does it seem each time our species climbs a new mountain, it seems to trip into new valleys?

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When all is said and done and communicated, here's where we once again find ourselves. A zealously ambitious herd of mammals that simply can't be satisfied with what is. And so the eternal hunt for what can be.
This is our wiring and our wonder. Also, it would seem, our fortune and our fate.

So here we are, connecting with one another whether YOU really like it or not.....!!