Day 17

I have been watching my Mother and Father this weekend, and I have observed them in their domains and their home. I watch as they have had all sorts of experiences throughout their lives and how that has made them who they are today. They are a living legacy of trials and heartaches, of wonderful days and prosperity. They are who they are because of their willingness to work on specific goals together, instead of giving up and dividing. I am a believer that we are who we are because of the shoulders that we now stand on.

This is a antique toy from about 1900. This is the first edition of the viewfinder. When you look through the lenses your brain interprets the image as a 3d image, thus at the turn of the century it provided hours of entertainment for children and adults alike. I still use my mothers! But what it did was take the fascinating stories about all of these locations around the world and brought them to your home, even your fingertips. Instead of dreaming about seeing the Eiffel tower, you could see it in near reality.

Today we have hand-held computers that don't only take us around the world in a life-like reality, but they let us talk and play them in games and competitions too. We have gone from seeing pictures and letting our dreams live on in them to instantly talking with other people around the world that live in these majestic lands that we have never been to.

It use to be that all you really needed to survive in the world was a spot of land, farming knowledge and a good sturdy back. That is much different today. In order for us to survive, we need money. To get money we need a job. To get a job we need to be educated and for most of us that requires us to go into debt. So while working for this schooling we have other temporary jobs of which we need an automobile to get to and from and there are a number of other costs that you can come up with.

So my observation comes down to this... We live in a time where we are trying to create all of these wonderful time-saving devices and in so doing we are spending all of our extra time working to save up money to get these things. I am not saying that one is better than the other but rather that, I think in our society today, from what I have observed and thought about today, it seems to be easer to expect something now and not be willing to work at it for the long haul. Just as the old adage says, "Good things come in time." Or as my roommate says, "Use it up wear it out, make due or due without." But what are we taught by our society today?