Winfried, you wrote:
> I've read your posting with growing amazement. Leaving me with the
> question: WHY?
> Why, Ben? What are you trying to abandon or to avoid or to achieve? What
> do you expect from a technolized world, where everything is taken care of?
> To be honest, the way you put it scaires me!
First, you're not alone in being scared. Many people feel like the
Internet is causing us to lose our capacity to enjoy face-to-face (F2F)
relationships; some feel like they've become technical hermits. In my
neighborhood, for example, the neighbors rarely talk to one another. We
all come home from work, and use the Internet to talk to our friends. (I
live just two miles from Novell, so there's a lot of techies nearby.)
What am I try to avoid, abandon, or achieve? I don't know that I'm trying
to avoid or abandon anyting; I am trying to achieve something: more time
with my family and my closest friends.
The Industrial Age, I believe, did a lot to separate parents and children.
Instead of working on the farm as a family, the father and the mother
would got to work in the factory. While this may have created more wealth,
I'm not sure it had such a positive impact on the sanctity and longevity
of the family unit.
What I want is a way that I can work hard, earn money, learn, share, and
communicate with other people without having to leave my home. I want to
be a part of my children's life; I want my children to know me better than
I knew my father.
Technology, and especially the communication infrastructure found in the
Internet, can provide the structures necessary for me to achieve this
objective. I hope, in the future, that I'll be able to take a family
vacation, and work while I travel. . .all within the proximity of my
family.
That is a very personal view; I'd like to get into the global view I have,
but I'm way too tired. May be another day. . .if I remember.
--Benjamin B. Compton bbcompton@aol.com
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>