Two articles read within 24 hours:
One: ‘Whatever happened to downtime?’
“Why do we give up our sacred space so easily? Because space is scary. During these temporary voids of distraction, our minds return to the uncertainty and fears that plague all of us… It is now possible to always feel loved and cared for, thanks to the efficiency of our “comment walls” on Facebook and seamless connection with everyone we’ve ever know”
Two: ‘My Own Private (Rental) Island, in the Bahamas’
“These are the things I carried: an iPad jammed with various kinds of media, enough batteries to stock a Wal-Mart, a BlackBerry, a bunch of DVDs, 7,000 songs on my iPod, and a bottle of extra virgin olive oil.
These are the things I needed: My wife.
Had I been on Little Deadman’s Cay by myself, I would have gone mad fairly quickly and begun speaking to coconuts or at least banging them together to hear some noise beyond my own breathing. On this trip, Jill was the necessary luxury.”
A significant number among us now feel more comfortable speaking – behind a screen -with our larger circle of acquaintances than with our inner circle of friends. This is changing that thin slice of society we’re part of, changing in real, observable ways. How much we won’t know, except in hindsight.