Human versus iPod Touch

I love technology. I really do. I love how people, much smarter then I am, can come up with an idea for a new electronic product that can do things that we could only have dreamed of in science fiction when I was a kid. Just a few examples; there is a couple of tech guys and scientists who have come up with a body suit of sorts that allows a paraplegic to walk. The man that they were showing, wearing this suit, hadn't walked in years, but now thanks to this technology he is able to walk after a fashion. There has been at least one famous person who had a device implanted near his deaf ears that now allows him to hear. And then there are the guys in Europe who built a car that can be folded like a stroller. The list of things could go on forever. Then we have the more personal devices such as computers and smart phones. My family has just recently been introduced to the joys of iPods, makes us wonder how we ever got anything done with out them, and then there is all the social networking websites. We are, in short, one of the most technologically and electronically connected societies in the world but I think that in the age of "touch " every thing, that we have, perhaps, lost sight of something more important, the human touch. Not to be taken wrong, I like my cell phone and iPod, I love having the ability to chat with people thousands of miles away via the computer or post this blog to a social network but think of how many times something that you have said, via the web, has been taken wrong or out of context simply because someone couldn't see your face or actually hear your voice. They took it wrong because, we are wired, to listen to tone and inflection as well as observe body language, none of which you can really get online or while texting. We have of course, invented some pretty handy short words and smiles to help express our thoughts and ideas but there is nothing quite like up close and personal. Twice in my married life, I have been separated from my family for extended periods of time and it was great to have the technology available to contact them, but once I came back I couldn't get enough of personal contact and it was hard for me to let them out of my sight for any length of time. It wasn't that I lacked contact, it just wasn't human physical contact. We were recently visiting some friends and I found myself amused that all of us were sitting in the same room talking and joking but we were all wired at the same time. My son was on an iPod, my daughter on a laptop, my wife and I were on an iPod, as were our friends. We were actually interacting via these devices by playing games and talking, but we were also all surfing the web. I suppose it could be argued that this is the modern day version of sitting around the radio to listen to Buck Rogers or the tube to watch the Ed Sullivan show, but still somehow I find this less personal. Back in those days everyone was doing the same thing so that somehow connected you to others. Mobile technology seems to make it different somehow. I remember I was at a baseball game with a friend a few years ago and there was a man and his young son, sitting a few rows down from us, the son was trying to find out what was going on because he didn't understand the game but the father ignored him and then became angry with him for interrupting what ever it was that he was doing on his phone. Other then getting angry with him, he didn't interact with his son and missed a great bonding moment. Perhaps it boils down to a lack of human contact and bonding. I enjoy reading people's status updates and their links to various pages, and texting has become quite fun for me as well as a challenge and I think it's nice to make arrangements with our friends to get together via the internet, but, I have to admit, I am old fashioned. I actually prefer personal to electronic, I'll take human touch over iPod touch anytime....excuse me I have to answer this text.....

What Really Matters

You have heard the stories, have probably seen it on the web or TV, somebody famous has given a huge chunk of change to an orphanage in a third world country. Another has gone to Africa and has adopted several children and still someone else has donated their time and money to feed starving people somewhere in the world. All the above mentioned things are good, and I believe that if G-D has given you the means to help folks out you should, but it makes me feel kind of small in comparison. I know that I am not likely to ever be able to afford to go to Africa , never mind giving large chunks of change to anyone, so what are people such as myself ,and likely you, supposed to do? In an earlier post I wrote about George Bailey in the movie "Its A Wonderful Life" and how all the things that he had done in his life had effected others in ways that he had never realized. It wasn't that he had done super colossal things, instead it was all the effects of the small things that he had done that made him a great person and loved by all. As shown in the movie its the small everyday things that we do that can make a difference. Let me give you some examples based on a recent event. When it is 6 degrees outside, with a wind chill of 10 below, and you pass a car broken down beside the road, complete with a family in that cold car, rather then honking at them, because they have the nerve to be broken down in an inconvenient spot, how about stopping to see if they need any help. Or perhaps if you can't stop, driving up the road until you have a signal and then call for help. Or if you come out of your house and you see a car with the flashers on, the hood up and a man desperately trying to make a call perhaps rather then driving away (the car died literally in front of this house) perhaps you could take a moment and let the people use your phone long enough to call a friend and a tow truck, these things may seem like a small thing to you but to the ones who are freezing that little act of kindness could make a huge difference. In all fairness there were a few people who stopped and checked on us, one man pulled his car up and we tried jumping the battery but to no avail. Another person, a woman, slowed down enough to ask if we needed help, but the vast majority drove by us and looked but that was it. We are blessed, however with friends and family who came and froze with us until the truck came, towed our car from the garage to their house, and loaned us a car until this one is fixed. None of them were probably thinking that they were doing anything of any great importance, because they are a humble bunch after all, yet it was these, by the standards of the world anyhow, small things that made a huge difference for me and my family. You don't need to go to Africa to feed people,feeding folks in Africa is a good thing don't take me wrong, but there are likely people right in your town or neighborhood who could use some food. Pick up a couple of cans of soup and bring them to a food shelter or a food drive, you don't have to spend a fortune to make a difference. I have a friend who sold Christmas trees to benefit a homeless shelter, she didn't buy the trees herself, but she did give of her time to sell them. These are the little things that count and make a difference. In the movie "Evan Almighty" G-D, looking a lot like Morgan Freeman, tells Evan Baxter to build him an "Ark" because the flood waters were coming. In the end it was a dam breaking that caused the flood, but because Evan built the Ark many people were saved and a larger environmental disaster was averted but it was the end of the movie that really mattered. It was when G-D says to Evan that if really wants to change the world all he has to do is an "act of random kindness" hence the word Ark. I believe that it is as simple as that. Open the door for someone,give time to a charity, pick up a bag of groceries and quietly give them to someone in need . Give a hungry dog a bone, any thing that you do may not seem like much but in the eyes of G-D and the recipient it is huge. Isa.1:17 JPS "Learn to do good. Devote yourself to justice; Aid the wronged. Uphold the rights of the orphan; Defend the cause of the widow."

Parallel Worlds

Imagine waking up in a world that is different then the one you went to sleep in.  Not in huge ways, but in little ways.  The bed sheets are different, the curtains are blue when you remember them being green the night before.  You go to work, only to discover that your department is in another building then the one you had always gone to and that you are the manager, whereas yesterday you had just been a part of the staff.  You go home sick and confused because you know something isn't right, and waiting for you is a spouse that you don't remember having, yet she is the sweetheart that you had in high school.  Sounds kind of freaky doesn't it?  How about getting off of a plane in a country that you have visited many times only to be told that your passport is no good because the country it's from doesn't exist and as far as they know, never existed.  Yet, you know it's real, you can see it in your mind, you have money in your wallet from that nation and even your driver's license says that you are, yet no one has ever heard of the place.

What would you do if you found yourself in that situation?  The people I read about, and there were more then just the two, are understandably upset.  People are telling them that they are crazy and confused.  Yet, in all these cases the people who are experiencing this will insist that this is really happening to them, that they have some how shifted into an alternate or parallel universe.

I read these two stories from an alternative news sight that has everything from normal news, if there is such a thing anymore, to out right weird and all points in between.  I don't claim that these stories are true (I did change some of the details and left out names though I stayed true to the intent) but the idea "Intersecting Alternate Realities" really fascinates me.

The basic concept, very simply put, suggests that every decision that we make or don't make happens in an alternate universe, and because we have so many decisions that we make every day that the alternates realities just go on and on.  It is also suggested that from time to time some of these alternates intersect with each other causing these anomalies to happen and people get moved from one to  the other, not everyone mind you, but just people in the right place and time. Now, before you dismiss this as just being totally insane, understand that Quantum Physics says that all this is mathematically possible.

Now to the point.  I wonder to myself how many of us go through our lives wishing that we were living in an alternate reality.  We spend a lot of time looking backwards and regretting decisions that we made many years ago and then pondering what life might have been like if we had decided differently.  I can use my self as an example.  What would have happened if I had gone to college instead of going into the military?  Or a trade school?

First off, I wouldn't have been in the Iraq war dealing with consequences both physically and mentally but then I likely would not have married my wife either.  She was 5 years behind me in school and while we were all a part of the same religious persuasion,  and we would have likely have gone to the same college, because I was so far ahead of her I would have likely gotten together with someone else and our paths might have crossed but not in the same way.  By joining the military when I did, it set the stage for us to meet via mutual friends and here we are now with 22 years of being together, 21 of them married and the 5 years of difference doesn't matter.

Here is another thought;  you might be where you are because G-D knows that you can handle it.  I was complaining one day about my physical condition to a Rabbi friend and he suggested to me that I was in this position because G-D knows that I can handle it and make some good come from it.  That blew me away.  Take something that is painful and down right humbling at times and use it for good?  I had never even considered that thought before.  So it could be said for all of us, perhaps rather then wishing we  were elsewhere in time and place we could look and decide for our self to make this time and place a little better.

Then think about what would happen if you weren't here or had never been.  Most of us go through our lives never really knowing how much we affect others around us, that's partially because we don't generally let others know how much we appreciate them until we are at their funerals, but I also think it's because life comes at us so fast that we simply miss the influence we have.  In the movie "Its A Wonderful Life" George Bailey gets a chance to see just how much his life has impacted others after he declares that it would have been better if he hadn't been born.  Every thing from his brother drowning, thus causing a bunch of soldiers to die on a troop transport years later, to his wife becoming a old maid, and his home town becoming a bad place to be was shown to him, and it all happened because he hadn't been born. He returns to this life in no less trouble but he sees his life  from a much different perspective.

None of us are likely to be as lucky as he was and get the chance to see what it would be like without us, so it is up to us to live the life that G-D has given us to the fullest.  The formula is for it is actually quite easy.  Love G-D and Love people.  You do those two things and you probably won't want to be elsewhere in time or space.

The people that I mentioned in the beginning, according to the story, are not very happy campers.  If it is true that they have been removed from their time and space it is also just as understandable that they wish to go back, so be careful what you wish for or you may wake up one day wondering who changed the curtains.....