Do you love, without a doubt, living in the Information age? Or do you wonder of its dangers, like if we have lost connection with our inherent wisdom in favor of having a glorious array of facts and opinions at our fingertips that may or may not be applicable to a given problem?
I think I may have inadvertently stumbled when I rambled:
“I know what things are made of. How be healthy. How to feel free. All this knowledge is out there. What a privilege, to be taught to fish rather than fed!”
But what of this…
“We can certainly access a lot more information, but we don’t necessarily have more wisdom.”
Touche. But if not ourselves, who can we trust to provide the wisdom? To use the popular example of healthcare, in the US drug companies over-diagnose diseases like ADHD while advertising their ‘cures’ directly to consumers. Meanwhile doctors poo-poo self-diagnosis because otherwise what did they spend 4 years in med school, 4 years in residency, and upwards of $300K for anyway?! The information is not hidden, but agendas sometimes are. In the age of information, is cynicism the new wisdom?
Dandelions
a child plays in a spring field
the sun shining and the grass wet with dew
a patch of yellow flowers catches her eye
the happy, fleshy heads staring up at her
and she smiles.
she plucks a few with sheer delight
to bring home to her mother
who loves them
because they are a gift
and the plant left behind
begins to reconstruct itself.
a woman walks through her spring yard
the sun shining and the grass wet with dew
a patch of yellow flowers catches her eye
the happy fleshy heads staring up at her
and she scowls.
she bends down and snips the stalk
the milk runs over her hands
the stub left behind, a corpse
for sometime in her younger years
someone very unaware
said they are not flowers at all
but weeds.
Did anyone read that book as a teenager? Judy Blume was the savior of pre-pubescents when I was one. I’m actually not sure I read that particular book, though Judy Blume was part of the canon in some capacity. I think I went straight from A Wrinkle in Time, after a brief detour through The Babysitter’s Club until I realized that all 100+ volumes were exactly the same, to The Clan of the Cavebear and I had found my realm.
Anyway, that title is just what happened to pop into my head as I peered out from my dark hiding place of real life to the big bright fakish world of the web. Well hello out there, sorry for being so anti-social. I re-published a bunch of old post so that you’ll forgive me.
Why the silence? Well, to be honest I have sort of enjoyed keeping away from the computer after 5pm, now that we’re back to work full-time. Evenings are for cooking dinner and reading and wishing they were longer. And the fact that I’m staying with my parents, and when not with them elsewhere in another social setting, has all but evaporated that private world that a blogger lives in. I would feel creepy holing up in my room while there are actual real live people around to talk to. Not that it IS creepy to do that, it’s just not my style.
The carpeannum crew does seem to be in transition, doesn’t it? The school year has rolled over and those year-seizers are seizing this one yet again but in different ways. Andrea is in Spain, I think. Julian is out and about in the states. Noel is back in Milwaukee, though in Death Valley, CA at the moment. And I’m in Milwaukee, doing the transition thing too. I’m enjoying being back to work after a long (for me) hiatus of travel. I’m also clinging to my dreams, making sure that at least something gets done towards one of them each day.
And with that, Margaret is on her way.
