The Values of My Childhood in a World of Global Connection

By: EM Sky
Submitted: 2007-01-17 16:40:07
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Most of us understand how much we mean to our close friends and family, but it's easy to forget how much our "presence" can mean to others, even outside of these intimate circles. We simply haven't yet internalized the profound connectedness of the modern world.

I was born on the very cusp of the computer generation. I am young enough that the first personal computers were released on the market when I was still in high school. I have fond memories of learning the ins and outs of my Radio Shack TRS-80--a model I should have kept since it would have been a collector's item by now--when modems were clunky boxes that you physically smashed against your telephone's headset and software was stored on cassette tapes that you had to pause and rewind just like your VCR.

The day is coming when young adults will no longer know what a VCR is.

But I am old enough to remember a time before VCR's, before cable television, before cell phones, and before answering machines....

I am also old enough to remember the track "Darling Nikki" as it was originally released by Prince and the Revolution on the album Purple Rain. A young friend of mine was recently listening to the Foo Fighters version, released in 2003, and I commented that I thought the cover was pretty good.

"Yeah," he replied."Um... who did it first?" Never have I felt quite so old as I did in that moment.

But most importantly, I am old enough to have been culturally programmed in a time before the Internet had morphed into the web, before e-mail was a given, and therefore before people could reach out to each other across the great divide--across oceans and time zones and cultural barriers--connecting instantly at any time of day or night to just about anyone they choose.

In the world of my childhood, distant communication was conducted by telephone or by "snail mail"--which was just plain "mail" in those days. If you didn't have someone's telephone number or address, they were not so easy to find. Even public listings had a certain aura of privacy about them. "Looking someone up" was almost considered rude.

Today, the opposite is true. While we may still guard a home address or a private line, there are more public ways to find us that we advertise with abandon. And thousands upon thousands of us post our daily thoughts in the public forum, inviting others into conversation. But we aren't entering into those conversations with others like we could be. Even in this shared global space, we are still enacting the paradigm of the private life.

Old programming dies hard, and when I was young, books and articles were digested and then filed away. It was impossible to contact the author of every book you read. Even if you could find an address, it was not easy to engage in a dialog, and you had no way of knowing without first contacting them whether they wanted to be contacted at all.

But the web has completely transformed this phenomenon. Authors who want to be in conversation with their readers have web sites, blogs, chat rooms and open forums. The bulk of an author's writings may even be published in these venues. Authors are inviting conversation, and we are failing to join in because we don't think to investigate the possibility.

I love receiving comments from readers on my blogs, and frankly I haven't been reaching out often enough to offer my own comments to others. We live in a time of global conversation, but we aren't going to benefit from it if we don't participate.

Having recognized my error, you can rest assured I will be reaching out. From now on, every time I finish a book, I will look up the author on the web, if only to leave a single sentence or two of appreciation for their efforts. Authors spend months out of their lives preparing manuscripts that I am willing to spend hours out of my own life reading. Surely taking three minutes to thank them wouldn't be out of line. I'm starting to see my earlier habit of indifference as an appalling lack of manners.

In the same vein, I will never again read a full web article or blog post without leaving a quick comment, assuming that a method is provided for doing so. If I find it worth my time to read the entire post, then surely I also have the time to leave a brief thank you.

Embracing this shift into the global culture of interconnection may require a few new habits--even a new mindset--but ironically these changes are only serving to bring my life back into line with the fundamental principles of my childhood: gratitude, honor, respect, and integrity.

I was taught to receive gifts graciously, remembering always to say "thank you." I was taught to respond to others whenever I was spoken to--to do otherwise would have been the height of rudeness. I was taught to be considerate of others--to be thoughtful, and to offer up small kindnesses wherever possible. It's time I learned to embody these principles in this brave new world of connection. It's time I understood what it means to be a true citizen of a global humanity.

--EM Sky has been a math instructor for The Johns Hopkins University, a special effects technician in Hollywood, a project manager for BellSouth, and a rock climbing instructor in Atlanta. She briefly considered leaving her life of adventure to become a lawyer, but fortunately she came to her senses. Now she is an author, writing on business, life, and society for the whole human being.

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