Thursday, December 22, 2011

Don't get me wrong...

I love Google. I love that I have the whole world's knowledge and information at my fingertips. And I especially love that I can be in contact with anyone at any time anywhere in the universe.
What I don't love is that to do all that and to manage on-going electronic connectivity I have to work within a spiteful series of systems and procedures which will exclude me at the drop of a hat and prevent me from finding some file or making some basic word adjustment. Just because I'm not playing in their rules. I can't negotiate my way out of a corner and I can't reason with Windows or Word or whatever to just listen to me and let me do something in a way that I understand. There is no give and take here. You do it their way or nothing!
What I especially don't like is that it makes me loose my independence and own identity.To fix some operating system problem I have to ask for help. And I usually have to get some nerdy person forty years younger than me to whizz through a process which gets me out of some electronic hole. I have to submit and face the humiliation or remain stuck. It's a difficult issue this for a man who believes that he knows his way around the world and can conduct a well-informed discussion with other bright people, but has to give himself up tto some spotty kid in moments of personal distress.
People imply sometimes that this electronic culture gap is a generational thing. And there may be some of that. But it is also in the personality.Some people just work more easily in an established system and others carry the burden of willful independence

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