Modern restlessness

IT people are a very strange breed. Generally pleasant and helpful, they however seem to occupy another world and look with some disdain on this one and those who inhabit it. I consider myself reasonably bright and slightly tech-savvy but I have spent a good portion of today talking to, or maybe around, IT people and have got no-where very fast. My task seemed fairly simple: find a company to design and host a website for our community association. Apparently we are very small fish in the big pond of the technology community and no-one seems that interested. However, I have had some interesting discussions and have come away websiteless but somewhat illuminated. A bonus for me is that I am also looking for someone to host a website for myself so I was able to kill two birds with one stone or rather, gather dual purpose information even if I emerged empty-handed. I will engage in the fray another day better informed.

My seemingly endless to-ing and fro-ing led me to think about this connected world in which we live. I’ve been keeping up with the breaking news on the bridge collapse in Minneapolis via CNN, the Star-Tribune and the Pioneer Press. I also was able to look at photos posted by former classmates of the boarding school I attended thirty years or so ago. It is amazing to be able to grab this information but it can be emotionally overwhelming.

Would it be better not to have access to all of this? To be ignorant of tragedy on the other side of the world? To not have my heart wrenched by a familiar scene from my childhood? To not see my pictured face of so many years ago?

On the other hand, with the click of my mouse and tap tapping at the keyboard, I have requested an array of potentially useful reference books, some via the local library, some from the university library through an useful "source." I hope to find them more useful than previous reference books.

Left with a sense of restlessness, I am led to reflect on a quote from a friend’s sig “Being a good writer is 3% talent, 97% not being distracted by the Internet.”