Spring Cleaning Because Phil Lied

Phil lied. Or else he can’t count.

Our six more weeks of winter passed over four weeks ago, and still the temperatures freeze your nose, your fingers and your toes. The bright sunshine fools us into thinking it’s warm outside, and we don our light-weight coats hoping to enjoy an early spring walk. We don’t get far before we realize we’ve been had. Back we go, into the warm house, where tonight we will have a blazing fire.

I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for spring! I’m tired of being cooped up inside. I need my nature fix – a hike in the woods, listening to the birds, and the breeze as it sings through the trees. Capturing deer and other wildlife, trees budding and flowers blooming in all the glorious colors of nature through my camera lens. These are things that fuel my creativity. 

Instead, I’m laying the groundwork for writing days by “spring” cleaning.

I’m starting with my computer. I admit I’m something of a packrat and that includes email. I have about 14 different email addresses I use. I know, I know – who needs that many email addresses? I can justify maybe 8 of them: 

• Work

• Personal

• Author

• Blog

• Writers group

• Hubby (He is technology-challenged but wanted an email for certain things so I monitor it for him.)

• Shopping (I use this one for all online shopping.)

• Writing (Why do I need 4 of these?) 

• Miscellaneous (Why do I need 3 of these?)

Over the years I’ve used the 4 writing and 3 miscellaneous email addresses for different things. These are the ones I need to combine and simplify, especially the writing email addresses. While skimming through them, I realized I have subscribed to some of the same author newsletters from multiple emails, so I created a spreadsheet and listed all of my emails and what I subscribe to under each one. Combining and simplifying might take a while!

The stack of books I’ve been collecting over the winter is up next.  Most of them I’ve snuck into the house two or three at a time in my tote bag, stashing them in my daughter’s old room on the various shelves she left behind when she moved out. Hubby thinks I own too many books already, but I’m still buying, and I’m still accepting books passed on to me by friends. What Hubby doesn’t know won’t hurt him, right? The problem is I don’t know what I already have, and a couple times I’ve purchased the same book twice. I can always give the second copy to a fellow reader, but darn it, I could be using that money to buy another book I don’t already have! Sorting them out seems like a good way to continue my spring cleaning…

Once the books are sorted, I’m moving on to my desk. Right now it's located in my son’s old room, which I’m still transitioning into my office. Starting on the office décor was much more fun than the cleaning and sorting part. But the desktop is collecting articles that need filed, pens that need tested to see if they work, and more books that need to be sorted. It makes a nice catch-all but it's covered with so much stuff that I can't use it for writing, and that kind of defeats the purpose, doesn't it?

I’ve procrastinated long enough. These are all tasks that need done, and since Phil let me down, I am trying to take advantage of the not-so-nice weather to accomplish tasks I won’t want to do once spring really does arrive. 

What spring cleaning do you feel compelled to tackle? Please share!

The Culture of Instant Gratification

I have a love/hate relationship with technology.

I embrace the computer, but don’t have a smart phone – mainly because I refuse to pay the price.  In my area, one month of a smart phone costs approximately three times what I currently pay for one month of internet access.  I’m not denying there are times a smart phone would be convenient, but I’ve also seen how addictive it can be.  I enjoy having downtime from electronics, and I don’t want to be attached at the hip, or hand, or ear.

I like my Kindle, but I love the feel of a paperback book in my hands.  My Kindle is great for having untold numbers of books readily accessible, as long as I have battery life.  It’s taken the place of a smart phone when I’ve spent hours sitting in hospital waiting rooms, or waited in the van for soccer practices to end.  But there’s a different connection with a paperback book in my hands.  The texture of the paper, the motion of turning the page... it’s just so easy to get lost in a book!
The internet makes it easy to stay in touch with family and friends far away, which I love, but I hate how people sometimes hide behind the relative anonymity it offers.  That’s a hypocritical statement, because sometimes I crave the anonymity as well.

But my biggest issue with technology today is the culture of instant gratification it has created.  Many people can’t function without checking their email or social media sites constantly.  Instead of face-to-face conversations, they communicate in short bursts via texting, Facebook or Twitter.  Companies exploit their clients to generate more sales by promising products that are faster than their rivals, and consumers buy into it because they crave even more immediacy.

“The unmistakable message people receive in both the workplace and marketplace is that faster is better,” writes Ronald Alsop, a freelance journalist and book author as well as longtime reporter and editor for The Wall Street Journal.  His article, Instant Gratification & Its Dark Side, explores the effect of technology on the millennial generation (those born during the 1980s and 1990s).

Unfortunately, in the quest for instant gratification, it is easy to forget that there are real people on the other end.  Being compelled to comment or post something NOW causes people to simply react with words, rather than considering the effect their words may have on others.  That’s when we run into trouble.

I’m just as guilty as the next person when it comes to craving instant gratification, even without a smart phone.  I’m a social person so I like knowing what is going on, even though I don’t really need to know all the time.  There are times when my kids are more likely to converse through texts than they are in person, so I take advantage of that.  And yes, I enjoy some aspects of social media - it’s darned addicting!

That being said, when I participate in social media, I try to abide by some basic guidelines that I hope I have instilled in my own millenials:
– Don’t be rude.
– Think about your words.  How would they affect YOU if you were the intended recipient?
– Remember that what happens online stays online...forever.  It might come back to bite you.
– Sometimes you have to be the bigger person and just let things go.

Sometimes instant gratification is not all it’s cracked up to be!

How do you feel about technology and instant gratification?  Do you love it, or hate it?  Please share.

Is Handwriting a Lost Art?

Office supply stores are one of my weaknesses. In particular, I’m drawn to the selection of pens and paper filling the shelves. If only they were unpackaged so I could try them all. The old quill pens gave me the willies, like fingernails on a chalkboard. Shudder. I don’t want to hear my pen scrawling my words. I prefer using a nice medium ball-point pen with blue ink.

There is something magical about the feel of a good pen in my hand. Words flow more easily from my pen onto paper than words I type on my computer. Maybe it’s because I type faster than I can write, and so when I’m typing, my fingers get ahead of my thoughts. Stopping to think interrupts the flow. But when I write by hand, my thoughts flow ahead, leaving my pen to follow. 

I blame my obsession with pen and paper on my dad. Throughout my childhood he fed my need to write, often giving me half-used notepads and pens he no longer favored. I tried to pass that on to my children. When they were toddlers, I gave them small notepads and pens when we traveled even short distances because it kept them occupied. Today, some of those pages with their first drawings, their first written words, are tucked into scrapbooks I cherish.

My mom has been going through storage boxes and trying to clean things out. She found mementos from our childhoods, and gave some back to each of us. Pictures from when we were babies, all the way up to more recent pictures, were identified with handwritten names and dates on the back. Handwritten school report cards. Newspaper clippings dated by hand. It was fun looking through it all. 

It was personal. I felt an emotional connection. And I fear that the emotional connection we have with things handwritten may one day be lost.

In his book titled The Missing Ink: The lost art of handwriting (and why it still matters), author Philip Hensher explores the value of handwriting. He writes, “Handwriting is what registers our individuality, and the mark which our culture has made on us. It has been seen as the unknowing key to our souls and our innermost nature. It has been regarded as a sign of our health as a society, of our intelligence, and as an object of simplicity, grace, fantasy and beauty in its own right.” 

Is Our Individuality at Stake?
If recent news articles are accurate, our individuality may be at stake. It is being reported that many states are looking at adoption of national curriculum guidelines that as of 2014 will not include cursive handwriting, but will instead require proficiency in computer keyboarding for students completing their elementary education.

The world today is filled with technology. While I acknowledge the importance of kids learning how to use it, I cringe to think of handwriting being more or less eliminated.

Handwriting, in many forms, has stood the test of time.

Caves with Stone Age drawings and symbols adorning their walls fascinate scientists who have discovered them. Handwritten historical documents found and preserved have provided a means for us to learn much about what happened in the past. Coded messages written by military personnel and sent by carrier pigeons enabled our troops to communicate with each other when other means of communication were not available. Handwriting connected people of the world

In the current age of technology, handwriting appears to be a lost art. Kids rarely color or write with pen and paper. Schools require kids to work on computers, to submit typed reports and papers. Many of the students who do write do so in print, rather than in cursive. If they can’t, or don’t, write in cursive, do they know how to read it?

Computers are at the core of many businesses. Employees are required to create documents, to communicate and share correspondence over e-mail and via the internet. Social media entices people to share life details, some of which should not be shared. Cell phones are replacing landline phones, and being carried and used by many. iPads and other tablets are becoming increasingly common tools for communication.

Has Technology Created a Monster?
All of this technology fuels impatience in people. Technology has vastly improved many aspects of our world today, but it has also created a monster: instant gratification.

I’m not against technology. But some days I yearn for simpler times.

I love my computer and I enjoy being able to stay in touch with far-flung friends and family on Facebook. My cell phone is a very basic phone with the capability to call or text; it doesn’t have a camera and it doesn’t surf the web. I just don’t want to be connected 24/7. Conversely, I recently ordered a tablet, which I hope to use for reading and writing on the run. Am I doomed?

I miss the days when kids went outside to play, running the neighborhood with friends instead of sitting on their butts all day playing video games. We had face-to-face relationships instead of cyber ones. We actually talked to people, and we listened to people. Maybe we didn’t want to, but it’s hard to ignore them when they are right in front of you.

I also miss the days when we wrote and received letters. Some of my most cherished belongings are handwritten letters from my grandmother. I’m hoping to one day at least get to read a shoebox full of letters currently not in my possession; letters my uncle wrote to my grandmother during the war. Anticipation is a heady feeling.

With instant gratification, there is no anticipation. We rely so heavily on our devices for communication and entertainment. It’s all at our fingertips, literally. But what happens when our batteries drain, when the power is out or we have no reception? 

Without technology, we are left to our own devices. Some people are so connected they wouldn’t know what to do without their devices. Not me. I have my trusty pen and paper.

Do you also yearn for simpler times, or do you prefer to be connected to technology?