The complications of a simple life

If it’s true that time seems to get faster the older you get, then at this rate a year will pass each day by the time I’m 80. That’s funny, because when I was little, it seemed like each day lasted a year.
I always thought technology was supposed to simplify our lives. It seems the more gizmos and gadgets we get, the more complicated life becomes. Of course, having four kids and being active in church and Scouts doesn’t slow things down, either. Even here at the newspaper things have picked up quite a bit.
It’s July already and I’m still trying to figure out where last Christmas went. In the last few weeks, I’ve had my daughter fly in to spend the summer with me, sent my oldest son to Scout camp, had all three of the boys visit my folks in Colorado and have made a trip to San Antonio.
In between all of that have been a couple Astros games, several church activities and a few Scout related things. If that weren’t enough, I had my home computer die a couple months ago, taking everything with it. Since then I’ve commandeered my children’s computer in order to reestablish e-mail and to start rebuilding everything I need to run the Lone Ranger Fan Club. I’ve just about finished my June newsletter, not a moment too soon.
Oh, and in preparation for my daughter’s arrival, we moved two bedrooms around, ripped out some ancient carpet and have been doing some reorganizing of the house.
In order to be that busy requires tools and things that were not commonplace, if in existence at all, a decade ago. While our busyness may sound typical of the average American family these days, none of it could happen efficiently without the aid of e-mail, cell phones, texting and other technological wonders of the 21st century.
We have had to communicate on the move, move farther on a tankful of gas, and be able to manage the schedules of six people on the fly. I don’t think we’d be accomplishing nearly as much without the modern marvels at our fingertips.
What gets me is how we used to talk about technology making our lives easier and freeing us for more leisure and intellectual pursuits. What I’ve discovered is that I am now doing the job that three or four people used to do. As the saying goes, the hurrier I go, the behinder I get.
It also feels like we are engaged in more activity, but not the depth of involvement that we had when I was a kid. In the rush of things, we don’t seem to get as heavily involved in any one project like we did back in the day. One the other hand, my children are involved in more things than I was. Who knows, maybe this is what all this technology was meant to free us to do.
Then again, if my kids didn’t spend so much time playing video games, texting and watching DVDs, they’d have time to engage at a deeper level. We do try to limit how much electronic entertainment they’re exposed to, but ironically it seems we have to communicate it and enforce it by electronic means.
All of this has me pining for the simple days of farm life that I enjoyed as a kid. To clarify that, we lived on an acre lot. On the back half my dad built a barn. We had a couple cows, a few sheep, a couple pigs, some chickens and turkeys and about 200 rabbits to care for. We also had a large vegetable garden that was well fertilized and in need of constant weeding.
Whenever I hear my kids complain about their chores, I have to laugh (as my father did to me) whenever I think about what I had to do compared to their small list. My list included everything they have plus critter care.
At the time, I would have loved to have had the iPods, cell phones and other contraptions to make life more comfortable, if not easier. But then I shudder to think of how busy we would have been back then if we had all those so-called time-saving devices to free us up for more “leisure” activity.
Anyway, back to the farm. I think spending time outdoors working with animals has benefits that can’t be measured with any number of modern gadgetry. Milking cows by hand, collecting eggs, seeing foals and calves born and butchering meat for supper are experiences most folks don’t have today. We were more fit and ate better back then and no amount of amazing high-tech machinery can replace that.
I’ve come to the conclusion that technology doesn’t simplify our lives; it only enables us to become busier. The proof of that is in how fast time flies with all the “leisure” time that has been afforded us.