Category: The Internet

A Nation of Hermits

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

Hermit-crab-GettyImages-597303469-58b66f6f5f9b586046c36d9e.jpgI have been told that my grandfather went shopping every Friday after work. He visited a bookstore and purchased a new volume to read during the coming week and then bought a few groceries which he carried home in a reusable mesh bag. (He was obviously way ahead of his time.) It was an outing that he enjoyed. As a child I accompanied my mother on Saturday shopping excursions. Sometimes we rode the bus into the downtown retail district, but mostly we went to the malls that were just then becoming a new phenomenon all across America. I looked forward to those times with great anticipation because they meant that I would receive a quarter to spend in any way that I chose. When I became an adult I kept the Saturday tradition going with my own daughters and I have warm memories of fun times together.

Eventually my girls left home and I enlisted my mother as a shopping partner once again. As she grew older I religiously visited her every Friday afternoon after work and our adventures always included dining out followed by an excursion to one of her favorite stores. She literally spent hours studying the items displayed in every aisle and buying only those offered for the best possible prices. She always appeared to be so happy just window shopping and I loved being with her talking about this and that as we went about our weekly routine. I suspect that I somehow developed a psychological connection between retail therapy and joyful memories of my mother, because to this very day I find wandering around my favorite stores to be calming.

I sometimes worry that the act of browsing inside boutiques and such will go the way of the dinosaur. I recently heard a news story in which an economist predicted that three fourths of all of the retail merchants that we now know will be gone within a couple of decades, replaced mostly by online giants and mega stores like Walmart. People are more and more often using existing brick and mortar establishments to see what products are like so that they might order the same things from Amazon for lower prices. More and more often we hear of stores closing their doors forever for lack of customers, and even those that appear to be doing well are struggling to keep up with the momentum of online shopping. It seems that people would rather spend their time on weekends enjoying family activities and traveling than perusing racks of clothing inside buildings. Furthermore the cost of renting space and paying for upkeep makes it difficult for traditional establishments to compete with the deals that online businesses are able to provide. The American shopping experience is rapidly changing.

Ironically we are in a sense returning to the old days of the catalog. In the early days of the twentieth century people who lived in more rural areas often shopped from a Sears or JC Penny catalog. Virtually anything that they might have wanted was available including kits for building homes. My father-in-law lives in a house in the Houston Heights that was made from designs sold in the early nineteen hundreds. It is a style that might be seen all across the country because it was a favorite of the catalog buying public during that era. Now we have online inventories from which we can choose most of the things that we use and have them delivered directly to our homes, often without having to pay shipping costs. With a few keystrokes we are able to order our medications, appliances, clothing, gifts and even groceries. There is little reason to get dressed up and venture out. It’s just so much easier to visit the electronic stores.

I have often believed that given enough reasons not to have to leave my home I would easily evolve into being a hermit of sorts. I wonder if today’s world is so fast paced and stressful that most of us are tempted by the idea of finding solace inside the walls of our homes as often as possible. We now have the capacity to enjoy movies, music and culinary experiences without ever venturing into crowded establishments. With Netflix and the like we are able to spend an evening watching great entertainment with all of the snacks we might desire for less than a third of the cost of going to a theater. Best of all we can do it in our pajamas and pause the action at will.

The world is always changing and those of us who cling to past memories may have to learn how to keep up. It appears that the big malls of yesteryear may become empty caverns of curiosity that our grandchildren and great grandchildren will view with wonder. They will marvel at the quaint idea of wandering from one shop to another as a form of entertainment. They will laugh at the impracticality of such ideas as they order their goods and receive them within hours from drones that drop them on their doorsteps.

In some ways the ever changing way of doing business is actually quite wonderful for seniors like me. As we become less and less able to get around we will still be able to procure the items that we need for comfortable and happy living. We will have little need to have a car or worry about transportation. With Uber as our chauffeur and Amazon as our marketplace we will be able to be independent far longer than previous generations. The only thing that worries me is that as we as a society spend more and more of our time inside our homes we run the risk of becoming isolated. Unless we couple the convenience of home shopping with concerted efforts to stay connected with other people we will fall prey to some very unhealthy habits.

It will be quite interesting to see what actually happens in the coming years. The stores that I frequent are still quite busy and I find it difficult to believe that everyone will be accepting of the idea of reinventing the ways of commerce and abandoning the brick and mortar experiences. Nonetheless I have been proven wrong many times before. I laughed at the idea of recording television programs for future viewing. I never dreamed that Blockbuster Video would become a memory of the past. I believed that Amazon was only a phase along with home computers and smart phones. There is no telling what actually lies ahead.

I now have devices in my home that turn on lights and monitor the area while I am gone, ready to alert the police in the event of trouble. I can view the rooms from hundreds of miles away. I receive my medication at my doorstep and purchase all of my Christmas gifts each year without ever having to search for parking spaces at a mall. I watch programs at my own leisure and truly believe that one day I will not have to drive my car because it will be programmed to get me from place to place on its own. I have a robot that cleans my floors just like Rosie in the Jetsons. I eat meals that only require a few minutes of heating time in the microwave. I am as automated as a science fiction story of old and there is definitely going to be more to come. I only hope that in our quest to make our homes all providing castles we do not fall into the trap of becoming a nation of hermits. The temptation is there. We will have to make certain that we find other ways of interacting with our fellow humans. I’m sure that someone already has ideas about how to accomplish that.

Real Life U

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

finaltiedyedblowdryerI attended a big graduation party for my grandson this weekend. We talked about all sorts of things and even had a few good laughs about my hair. I told all of the usual jokes about how difficult it is to arrange and the stories of actual insults that I have received from clueless people who simply don’t understand what it’s like to struggle with locks the texture of corn silk. Some people even took turns feeling how baby fine it is. I received all sorts of suggestions about what to do with it, but the fact is that it looks great only when my hair dressers fixes it. Trouble is that I can’t reproduce her coiffures at home. I simply don’t have the skills to puff it up and get it to lie right.

In truth I would love to be able to do a better job with my hair so I decided to search the Internet for ideas and came upon some YouTube videos done by a famous stylist. He demonstrated what type of blowdryer to use for my kind of hair and how to properly apply cremes that produce more volume in the hair shaft. I learned a great deal from him that I will certainly try, but I suspect that I would do even better if I had a personal coach who might watch me to correct any mistakes that I make in the process. After all we have such people on call at gyms. That got me to thinking about an entrepreneurial idea that someone should pursue. I call it Real Life U.

The truth is that we receive a particular type of education in schools that doesn’t  include some of the most basic skills that we need. There used to be shop and woodworking classes but those have mostly gone the way of the buggy whip. My mother learned how to sew and cook in high school but few institutions of learning offer such courses anymore. I once knew a PE coach who brought old cars to the school and worked with some of the students after hours to repair them. They walked away with some very valuable hands on skills that they truly appreciated having. His little workshops were quite popular indeed. I wondered then and now why we don’t have more of that type of training available for everyone.

It’s possible to learn almost anything on the Internet, but because I am a very kinesthetic kind of person I need real lab experience before feeling comfortable that I have mastered a particular skill. I know that watching a picture helps but there are nuances with regard to the way one stands or positions the hands and so forth that often make a huge difference in success or failure. By having an actual building where one can go to learn how to do just about anything under the guidance of experts there can be opportunities for practice and trouble shooting.

I envision students of all ages learning everything from how to style hair (my personal favorite) to how to install lighting or repair plumbing. I can see franchises popping up all over the country just like the cooking classes and painting sessions that have become so popular. I know that I would be quite interested in enrolling to learn all sorts of things that never come up in our academically focused public schools. I am able to solve quadratic equations in four or five different ways but I have no idea how to properly repair a rotting board on a house.

Surely someone reading my blog is going to think, “Aha! This is my ticket to wealth.” I really believe that there is a market. Right now we have a number of specialized learning situations in far flung locations but this would be one stop shopping for everyone. Over time it would be easy to determine what subjects are most in demand. I suspect that people will love it. Groups might come for an evening to learn how to apply makeup for different occasions or for many weeks to master the skill of putting pot lights in a kitchen.

Who knew that escape rooms would become as popular as they have? They are now popping up everywhere with storefronts catering to the locals. I heard recently about a man in Minnesota who started a recreational business called Extreme Sandbox. He leases several acres of land and a fleet of heavy equipment and provides adults with the bucket list activity of a lifetime. For one hundred dollars they can operate a steamroller or a bulldozer. He averages at least four hundred customers a month and is doing so well that he recently opened a new location in north Texas near Dallas. He says that he gets almost as many women as men, and groups from various companies come for team building activities. They leave so excited that they often return multiple times on their own.

There are no doubt many many ideas for starting new and different kinds of businesses than anyone has even considered. It usually begins when someone like me has a problem that needs solving and they realize that there is really nobody out there addressing the issue adequately. Most inventions begin this way.

I don’t want to spend my twilight years investing my time in creating such things, but I am more than happy to pass along my idea of Real Life U to someone else who might be interested. With a bit of hard work and some marketing genius Real Life U might become the McDonald’s of leisure learning. Just remember me when I come to use your services and give me a little discount. All I really want is to have a safe place where I might learn how to tame my hair and get it to behave the way my hairdresser does without disparaging comments. Who knows, I may see other classes while I’m there and sign up for them as well. I’m crossing my fingers that someone out there takes the initiative. We are all waiting to learn how to do the things that will allow us to live happier and more complete lives. Get those old cars out there for someone to repair. Turn on the blow dryers for the styling challenged. Real Life U here we come! All hail our alma mater!

Time To Clean House

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

song-sparrow-sing-58a6d9af5f9b58a3c91533bf

The words you speak become the house you live in. —Hafiz

I once knew a woman who was a downer. She reacted to virtually every situation with negativity. Chicken Little had nothing on her. According to the ideas she expressed the sky wasn’t just falling, it had already crashed to the ground and we were all in the midst of a great apocalypse. I ultimately reached a point at which I was no longer able to be around her. Just listening to her endless stream of complaining became like venturing into hell. It began to affect my own attitude so much so that I was suddenly imagining slights that really weren’t there. Her words literally transformed my feelings to such an extent that my happiness began to slip away. Even after I drew away from her it took a bit of time to recover, and I have often wondered what kind of disastrous effect her utterances were having on her children.

It’s difficult to find the refuge of silence in today’s world. There is chatter everywhere and it is not always of the healthy kind. There was a time when unkind or ugly words made one a social outcast, but there now seem to be no bounds that hold us back from saying anything that pops into our heads. We’ve got a late night television host who has strayed from joking about our president to uttering disgusting and controversial statements without much retribution. The same president who is the butt of those commentaries is well known and often applauded for his own repulsive insults. There is less and less of a tendency in our present society to hold people accountable for speaking in ways that were once deemed unacceptable. It has become a linguistic wild west that makes me cringe, because it demonstrates a lack of respect that should be insisted upon for each of us.

Certain language registers have traditionally been appropriate for specific times and places. We were all taught to be more formal at work or school, in church or during a public gathering. We reserve our most intimate words for our closest family members and friends, people in whom we trust. It is generally when we blur the lines between our casual speech and words that are more polite and carefully selected that we become misunderstood. Those who do not know us well may infer meanings that we did not intend, so we need to think before we speak. Sadly that is not as often the case as it used to be. Words are now bandied about without regard to their potential effect. The world now twitters and chirps like unthinking birds, creating a cacophonous noise that is having a negative effect on all of us. Somehow deep inside we sense that we need to make it stop but we just don’t know how.

My students who were being psychologically and verbally abused rarely reacted to the barrage of insults to which they were being subjected in a healthy manner. Instead they became withdrawn and angry. They sometimes ran away or, even worse, they began to emulate the behaviors that they witnessed on a daily basis. They evolved into bullies and fighters. They demonstrated a bravado that they hoped would disguise their own degradation and feelings of uselessness.

Our words are important. What we say to others not only affects them, but it also affects ourselves. We literally become the product of our thoughts and utterances, so we have to ask ourselves what kind of people we wish to be, and then act and speak accordingly. We can tell ourselves to make the best of our situations and to take control of our ways of reacting to the world, or we can become victims who continually complain. Free will is still very much ours.

I’d like to think that our present ways of talking so negatively with one another represent a phase that will soon pass. Somehow we find ourselves elevating individuals whose comments make us cringe over those who speak with gentleness and respect. We appear to prefer harsh words over those that are poetic and inspiring. I place my hope for the future in the knowledge that the speeches that we remember are uttered by good men and women who want to motivate us to be our best selves. We carve words from Abraham Lincoln or Martin Luther King into stone because they represent the kind of people that we all long to be.

Each of us has a voice. We have the power to be the change that we wish to see. We can turn off the noise with the flip of a switch. We can lead by example. It does not require us to take to the streets nor to become like those whom we abhor. It begins with our own words. We need to start by examining our own remarks and ridding them one by one of the kind of words that are hurtful to others. We can take back the power from people who would lead us with utterances that make us cringe. We do not need to be ugly to be strong. Let’s all focus on saying something nice. It’s time to clean house.

A DIY Disaster

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

671-ss-filling-joints-patio-paversIt’s late on a Sunday afternoon and I am sitting here wearing filthy clothing that is no doubt forever ruined. My big toe is bleeding from being ripped from its bed by a stray tree limb. My face is covered in sandy grit and my hair looks like Daryl’s coiffure in The Walking Dead. It wasn’t supposed to end this way, but I’m way ahead of my story so let’s go back to the beginning.

I have a lovely paver patio that husband Mike and I have enjoyed for several years now. We often dine there enjoying Mother Nature’s splendor. Of late I have had to continuously pull weeds that have grown between the crevices of the bricks because most of the sand that once filled the joints has evaporated due to wind and rain. I decided that it would be a fun and worthy project to get our favorite spot back up to speed. After all, who doesn’t like a DIY project? Why should Chip and Joanna get so much credit for what they do when we are all capable of a little fixer upping, right?

So I did a bit of research on YouTube where it’s possible to learn how to do virtually anything, and it seemed as though it was a very easy task. After all, Mike and I have done electrical work and I have painted a twelve foot wall using a ladder perched on a countertop. We are not exactly ignorant of the ways of home maintenance and repair.

Our first step was to take everything off of the patio and set it in the yard. That was quick and easy. Then it was on to ridding ourselves of those pesky weeds. That was a bigger project than we anticipated but it ultimately went well. We congratulated ourselves on a job well done. Next we power washed the entire area until it was gleaming like new. We were definitely on a roll and feeling a bit cocky about our abilities. I was actually day dreaming about the possibility of a new business venture in patio renovation.

While the area was drying in the warmth of a beautiful sunny day we went to Home Depot to get the compound to put between the joints. The place was packed and filled with employees pretending not to notice anyone who needed help which seemed fairly normal. Since Mike wasn’t about to ask anyone where to find what we needed (What men ever do?), it was up to me to inquire. A young man acted as though we had interrupted important work which included moving a two by four from one spot to another, and at first insisted that he had no idea what we were talking about. An older gentleman did his best to be a bit more polite, but it was obvious that he wasn’t quite sure what we were talking about. I suppose that there was a bit of a language barrier in his case. That should have been our cue that we were in trouble, but we persisted and finally the two of them began arguing about which of the many products were best suited for our purposes. They finally agreed that a sand and concrete mixture was exactly what we needed. We took their advice and headed for home thinking that in only a couple of hours we would have a beautifully renovated outdoor setting. I was particularly flying high with anticipation of how wonderful our finished project was going to be.

We had been instructed to pour some of the mixture directly on to the surface and then use a broom to sweep it into the cracks. Things seemed to be going swimmingly until some of the sandy substance began bleeding onto the pavers looking wet rather than dry. I have since found out that this is called staining and it happens when the area is not completely dry. Since it was only occurring in a couple of places we soldiered on thinking that all would still be well. Before long we had covered the entire surface and filled every joint, but the bleeding began to take place in multiple sections. Before long it appeared that we had literally killed our once gorgeous pavers. We swept and swept and swept, removing excess powder thinking that we might be able to save the day, but the problem only grew worse and worse, and after over an hour of sweeping there was a gray layer of sand all over every single paver. Not only had we lost all of the lovely color of the bricks, but the bleeding had reached an emergency level with gray concrete oozing over almost every single surface. We decided that maybe wetting things down might help, but that only lead to a crazy looking mess that gave the appearance that a group of kindergartners had decided to design an outdoor walkway. Our only option was to get the power washer out once again and literally soak the surface with so much water that the cracks were empty once again and the offending gray concrete was removed from the pavers. It literally took hours of hard work to spray the ugly film from each paver, one at a time. We wanted to cry at the evidence of our big fail, but there was little to do but laugh at our ineptness.

We were able to save the patio, but it now sits in a pool of dampness that will probably take days to dry. Every crack is wide open, so I expect the weeds to come back with a vengeance. We did a bit more research and now know what kind of substance to get. It is sand with a polymer, not concrete. Hopefully we can install it with more success by Tuesday or Wednesday and then put a sealant on the surface to keep it from washing away or getting dirty. I truly hope that we have a more favorable outcome than we did today. I am feeling a bit like a dunce and Mike is aching from standing on the hard concrete for almost six hours washing every square inch to keep it from being ruined. We both have a new respect for the little old man who did the original work for us, and maybe Chip and Joanna are way more impressive than we thought.

I’m going to go wash away my shame now. I now have a new set of work duds for dirty jobs, because the ones I am now wearing are only suitable for hard labor in the future. I can tell by the throbbing pain that my big toe is so damaged that I will not be wearing flip flops or sandals this summer. (I know. I know. I should have been wearing shoes, but I am a bit of a sixties hippie and I do my best work without confining my feet.) I guess that we may put “patio repair” on the list of things that we no longer wish to do, like plumbing and putting a roof on a house, fiascos with stories of their own from the past. Sometimes it’s best to stick with what we know rather than venturing into new territory. I suppose that we needed to do a bit more homework before trying our hand at something that is way harder than we anticipated.

I think that sometimes we are pence wise and pound foolish. We probably could have paid someone to do this for us and avoided a great deal of grief, but hey, we are retired and have more time than money. We should be able to do this. We know people who have had great success at such things. Surely we are as capable as they are.

If the weather holds up and the surface dries out, we will try again in a couple of days. I shouldn’t be worried, but I am. I shouldn’t feel ridiculous, but I do. The video showing us the process looked so easy. In fact, the people got the whole thing done in only four minutes. Surely we will get this right. I can only hope.

For now Mike is downing a beer. I think he has the right idea.

Electronic Amusement Park

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

electronic_devicesWe clutch our phones tightly, ready to snap a photo if something interesting comes along, waiting to hear the pings that alert us to reminders, messages, news. We carry a library in our pockets, a world of information which may or may not be entirely accurate. At home our DVRs faithfully record the programs that we will watch at our leisure, after we have culled through our email and deleted all of the recordings from solicitors on our answering machines. It is quite a task keeping up with the demands of living in an electronic amusement park. We want to insist that the children join us in conversation after dinner but allowing them to be entertained with the latest computer games provides us with just a bit more time to carry out our own duties. Keeping them mesmerized by millions of pixels flashing on a screen surely can’t be as bad as we imagine. We shrug and tell ourselves that such pursuits are quite harmless, an opportunity to develop hand/eye coordination. Surely the electric world that surrounds us is a good thing, a sign of mankind’s inventiveness, a form of major progress in the grand scheme of human history. 

Still there is a little itch in the far reaches of our brains that worries us. We wonder if all of our modern inventions have filled our world with unintended consequences. We know how wonderful it is to have a smartphone that guides us as we drive to places that we have never been. We feel so much more secure knowing that in an emergency we have a means of summoning help. The reminders and alarms keep us on task. Our dinner slowly cooks at home while we go about our work far away from our kitchens. The Roomba cleans the floor whether we are present or not. The Echo Dot turns on lights and monitors cameras that send images to our phones assuring us that all is well back in our little castles. The irrigation pipes care for our plants, the many different security systems warn us if there is trouble. Our lives are more carefree, less subject to worries…and yet…

We have a president who reacts to incidents without much forethought, tweeting comments that might better have been left unsaid. If we are honest we have to admit that many of us are not much better. We become embroiled in Facebook rants, Twitter trolls, email disagreements. We find ourselves wanting to take back comments that linger forever in the universe of the great social network. We cringe at the ugliness of the words that are so blithely typed in a moment of indiscretion. Our actions put us into camps of “them versus us.” It unnerves us and yet like our president we find ourselves taking argumentative bait as we tell ourselves that such habits must surely stop. Even when we attempt to serve as peacemakers we are often misunderstood. We know better and yet we try again and again to set things right in an electronic world that appears to have gone mad.

There are so many posers who want us to believe that they are keepers of the truth, fonts of wisdom. We have to be careful of the sources that we use to make decisions. Facts are twisted into opinions quite cleverly. Comments are taken out of context. Information is contorted to support ideologies. Finding out what is real is a confounding proposition, and we worry lest we become a world of lemmings blindly following clever power brokers who prey on our emotions and fears. We must look beyond the sound bites and edited images to know what is really happening. Ironically it is far more difficult to ferret out the truth in the present state of proliferated information that it has ever been before.

We see our children languishing in almost zombie like states as they spend hours upon hours in front of screens filled with games that appear to lead nowhere. They play long distance matches with people that we do not know. It all appears harmless until we realize that so many of them have lost the art of conversation and creative play. We know that there are youngsters in our neighborhoods but we rarely see them. The days of impromptu ballgames or fort building or gazing at the world from the branches of trees appear to be of a bygone era, replaced by playdates and organized outings. It is eerily quiet in the great outdoors.

I have a good friend who has rebelled. She owns the least expensive phone that Walmart provides. She eschews cable television in favor of a seven dollars and change subscription to Netflix. She doesn’t have a gaming system in her home, nor any kind of alarm other than one to warn of fire. She recycles and finds ways to make do. She enjoys the freedom that comes from turning off the madness. It gives her time to take walks or just sit outside waving at her neighbors. She reads from books that she finds at thrift stores and then passes them on to friends. She has rid herself of excesses of any kind. She only keeps what she needs and her wants are minimal. She has found a kind of peace and happiness that is all too often absent for so many of us even with all of our devices that were supposed to make our lives better.

I suspect that we are still attempting to understand how to find balance in the wondrous electronic playground that surrounds us. We have not yet learned how to keep the best aspects of our inventiveness while avoiding the unexpected pitfalls of our modern ways. We allow our machines to become more important than our humanity. We are sometimes so addicted to our devices that they become the focus of our daily routines. They make demands on our time, our talents and our personalities and sometimes imprison us in a vacuous wasteland if we are not careful. We have to learn how to take back control and impose limits on how much we allow ourselves to be negatively affected by the very devices that should be making us happier and more free to experience the delights of the world around us. We must begin to wean ourselves away from our dependence on machines rather than people, easy answers rather than careful thoughts.

Our world is wondrous and I would never suggest that we go back in time. There is still so much that we have yet to discover. The possibilities and dreams are exciting, and the tools that we have will surely move us closer and closer to better lifestyles for everyone. We simply have to pause long enough now and again to assess the ways in which we interact with people around us and to consider whether or not we are using our tools for betterment or out of boredom. Our phones, computers, televisions, and other machines need to know who is in charge. It’s time that we begin the process of reflecting on how we might use them more wisely.