Digital Hermit

With all of the press about the NSA listening to all of our conversations or reading all of our emails, it struck me earlier this week that it might be really easy to proclaim that you were going to be a "digital hermit," living off the grid.  This would be reminiscent of the movie "Enemy of the State." The main character had in fact, learned to live in a manner in which he left absolutely no electronic footprint.  At the same time I was thinking about this, I ran into an article about an area in West Virginia, Virginia, and a piece of Maryland called the "United States National Radio Quiet Zone."  This is an area of the US, that due to the work at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory has been declared as an area with no high power transmitters and makes such things as cell phones and wi-fi connectivity a thing of another world.  You can still find a phone booth here since this technology is ultra-modern for its residents.  So, this area would be much closer to the idea of being off the grid than anything we know today.  Maybe the answer is to move to that part of the US.

But hang on.  Wait just a minute.  This would mean that I wouldn't be able to have multiple computers in my home all networked with Wi-fi.  It would mean that I couldn't have a smart phone, or even moving back a generation or two, a cell phone of any kind.  No on-line banking, no texting, no instant messaging, no cars with spark plugs.  Okay, this is just more than I can think about.  On top of that, my generation is only somewhat connected whereas I am sure that if I talked to my children about this concept, they would just quit breathing.  These are all things we have come to take for granted and thinking about going backward is probably not something most of us want to do.  I know it isn't really something that I want to do.  I don't need to hear again the sound of AOL booting up to send a message over a network that is tens of times slower than the phone I carry today.

I have a tendency to long for the simplicity of the past until I stop to think about all of the convenience that comes with the way that our world is today.  I think about the times as a child when I could lay on a hillside and watch clouds go by, enjoying the time for hours. I remember that in my hometown I could be gone all day long and nobody would think about it.  Would I like to have these things back to be part of my life, or my kid's lives today?  Absolutely, but, like so many things, there is a trade-off.  As I watched Andrew and Megan grow up, it amazed me at the size of their world compared to the one I grew up in.  They had friends from all over the world and had lived in six places before they reached high school.  Where I had not flown anywhere until I was in college, my children had flown enough that Megan could tell me that she liked the First Class seats because they were more comfortable.  They had been to Disney World twice. My first trip was with them on their first time.  All sorts of differences that came with time.

I guess that where I am right now is that I value all of the wonderful things of the past, and I also love the things that are in the here and now.  I have wonderful memories of times and of friends that I had the privilege of knowing from before we started to school until after we graduated.  But at the same time, when I left for college, even though I was going to a small university, I was headed to a place that had more people than the community I had grown up in.  Long and short of it, there are pluses and minuses to everything.  I know that my children are more worldly at their age than I was then and I know that they have drug me along the road of "modern," sometimes screaming and kicking.  I must say that I appreciate the help.

Oh, a few last things worth remembering: the snow was always much deeper, and it was a 10 mile walk uphill to school when I was a child and I am sure that this was real and not just the way that I remember it. 

Well, off I go to wrap gifts with Rotary so some kids will have a better holiday.

Have a great week.