When I Grow Old and Wear the Bottom of My Trousers Rolled: A Digital Dissident

I grow old… I grow old…

I shall wear the bottom of my trousers rolled

~T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

Hmmm, does it make me atrisk of being irrelevant and swept aside if I long for the days before we were sweptinto the vortex?

Now that I am less thantwo months from retirement, I may soon have to change the title of this seriesof posts to Now That I am Old. Butthat will not lessen my longing for simpler times before we were drawn into thevortex of digital age. Those blissful days…

When multitasking meantremembering to pick up bread and milk on my way home from work. Versus 2023when my brain is on the brink of overload at any given moment and insistent virtualalarms make me want to bash all digitally driven devices with a sledge hammer.

When friend meant someone I knew by name, bysight and by the sound of their voice. Versus 2023 when it means someone Iacquire by clicking a button, will likely never meet and only recognize bytheir avatar.

When the only numbers Ihad to remember where my house or apartment address, my telephone number andthe combination of the lock for my locker at work or at school. Versus 2023when I have more codes and passwords than brain cells left to remember them.

When there were only adozen television channels and accessing them was a one-step process. Versus2023 when the options abound but finding my way to many of them requires adigital dexterity I simply do not possess.

When security meantlocking my door and my car and having a dog to scare off prowlers. Versus 2023when there are so many virtual doors to my personal information and assets thatI cannot stand guard at all of them nor grasp the logistics of the digital locks.

When a good mechaniccould diagnose a problem with my car by the sound it was making. Versus 2023when a diagnostic device converses with the computer components in my car andmakes its best guess at the problem based on the infinite interaction of bitsand bytes.

When money was somethingI could hold in my hand and store in my pocket. Versus 2023 when money is fastbecoming a theoretical concept which grows or shrinks in value based on lineson a graph and can vanish without a trace while I sleep.

When I could I pick upthe telephone to call a company and speak to a live operator who would connectme to the person I needed to speak with. Versus 2023 when I have to go to warwith a soulless voice mail system, take ten minutes and three cycles throughthe system to find my way to the right option, be told that the estimated waittime is 45 minutes and be unceremoniously disconnected at the 43 minute mark.

If this longing for asimpler time dooms me to be irrelevant, so be it. I am and always will be a digitaldissident battling for survival in the vortex. When I retire very soon, I makestart a resistance movement. Will you join me in the cause?

~  Now Available Onlinefrom Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: Hunting Muskie, Rites ofPassage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet

~ Michael Robert Dyet is alsothe author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel whichwas a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’swebsite at www.mdyetmetaphor.com .

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