WE’VE come such a
long way, you and I,
we really are justified
in expecting improve-
ment in every depart-
ment of our lives.

Look at medicine, for
one. There have been giant
steps taken towards a better,
healthier world. Cures have
been discovered for so many
of the life-threatening and
crippling disorders that in
our youth were called
untreatable,

And transportation, gosh,
a lot of us were born before
the automobile and now
quite ordinary folks have’
had the experience of tour-
ing the whole shrunken

_ World, not to mention‘
flights to the moon, ©.

Food, too — spoilage,
has been defeated by fast’
trucks and electricity and

every cuisine in the world
~ can be enjoyed with what
_we bring homie from super-
markets. We are al! constant-
ly bombarded with advice ©
about .what foods will best

make us happy and healthy
and invincible. Doesn’t
mean we follow the rules all
the time, but the thing is,
the relevant information i is
not just available, it’s com-
ing at us from every direc-
tion,

And speaking of informa-
tion, it pours over us, from
the magic television set and
the wide-open radio waves
and the newspapers and the
magazines and the fax
machines and the library’s

“Do you
remember those
more leisurely
evenings, when
we maybe
played
Parcheezie or

| Spin the Bottle

or Sang our

favorite songs.”

"shelves, and now, the

__ Internet. Not to mention
‘those who ‘carry their tele-
phones. around with them.

‘Some of this stuff we
would just as soon not get
mixed up in, but there is
constant pressure to “keep

“able to afford a
‘cellular phone. -

CHOOSE ANY CME OF FIVE FREE PHONES.

up,” and we find ourselves
apologizing for having
missed or overlooked events
and interplays that really just
bewilder us further.

There are those amongst
us, and I am one, who spent
years in remote places with-
out exchange of any kind,
except amongst our kin,
News of wars and other
calamities were brought on
foot, or by horseback, and
so nothing was a crisis — by
the time we knew about it
very likely it had been set-
tled, or replaced by some-
thing elsc.

This actual physical
detachment tele us ignorant
of a lot that happened in the
world, bur it also gave us
thinking time, and reading
time, and allowed lots of
room for actual conversa-
tions.

Do you remember those
more Icisurely evenings,
when we maybe played
Parcheezie or Spin the
Bottle or sang our favorite
songs? And talked to cach’
other.

What brought this all on
was my question to myself,
thinking about all these
tremendous changes in the
condition of our lives. “Are
we better for it?” Certainly
we are far freer to enjoy,
with greater leisure time,
and we live longer and can
boast far better education
than our own parents, as is
the same case with our chil-

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dren.

We are exposed to daily
fascinations in profusion
around us, and have avail-
able as never before the
tools for betterment. There
are still areas of the world
where inequities exist and
cruelty and ignorance stifle
change, but they are fewer

all the time. But is it really
better?

I worry about the chil-
dren. They were born into
this incredible environment
and have around them, at
hand, ready for use, an infi-
nite variety of opportunities
for making the most of what
is here as well as the chance
for absolute chaos. To them,
it’s the way the world is.

You and I can’t begin to
imagine the sort of life
theyll be fiving in another
25 or 30 years. This is the
other side of the card that
this wonderful new world
offers, the side that is in
permanent shadow. The side
that very possibly no one is
preparing for, it being
impossible to imagine what
personal adaptations will be
required.

The computer, with its
new side-kick the Internet,
fosters isolation that could
turn it all backwards, at the
same time that it peels.away
the layers berween us.

I'm glad to be only an
observer. The waters are
getting too deep.

We Care’

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