Glad to be an old fart!!

A conversation last night triggered some memories of days of yore, when the world was a different place, when life, from the perspective of today, was less exposed.

Back there in them far gone 1980’s, I maintained a romantic relationship via long, cold conversations in a telephone box, and letters. Lots of letters. In envelopes, with stamps and everything.

And people where what you saw, and what they presented to you, and the rest would have to emerge at its own pace.

And the only place that you could get subjected to remote vicious and unwarranted attack was in the newspapers. And they were the main source of our information, along with a narrow selection of broadcast media.

As a result there was much that was hidden, and controlled. And many suffered at the hands of others, and couldn’t gain public awareness.

And maintaining remote contact was more problematic, and less reliable, and international incidents and crises passed many by.

There was space to hide, to be secretive, to retain a private self. But it could also be a space to conceal fear, and suffering, and repression, and subversion.

Today it is hard to get away, to be apart. It takes a conscious act of will to be disconnected from the grid that is everyone’s linked presence. And it can be done, and it can be controlled. But it needs to be a conscious decision.

There are huge positives that have arisen. More awareness, more understanding, more connections. The ability to organise, to motivate, to mobilise. Support can be found, and offered. Empathy can be raised, and linked, and interlaced across the globe.

And then there is the pressure, the constant surveillance of every element of your life, and the demand to present more and more to the world, and justify, and conform, and never disconnect.

And the ease with which distortion and partial truth can become the real and the whole. And the anonymous can attack, and attack again, and hurt, and hide.

Notwithstanding all the negatives that have arisen, the positives of real mass communication are real, and the potential even more so.

I am just glad I had the opportunity of the alternative, because a letter, in an envelope, with a stamp, is still a wonderous thing.