Life 1.0: The killer application

Ok, this is the post i read at 1000Watt Blog, posted by Davison, but as i liked it so much, and i think it has some truths we nowdays often tend to forget, i wanted to share it with you too:

In a time past
We looked before we crossed.
We checked our change.
We spent only part of what money we had.
The rest we saved.

We read books from cover to cover.
And articles from headline to closing paragraph.
Because most writers were credible.

Friends had a vested interest.
They were few but sincere.
Who they were said much about you.
At a drop of a hat they'd come to your rescue.

People we knew could get us on the phone.
If they needed a job, they didn't reach out to our connections.
They called us direct.
Because anything else would be considered rude.

When we did something, we just did it.
We didn't write about it or call friends.
By keeping our thoughts to ourselves we preserved a part of us that made us seem ... dignified.

Today
Pedestrians have rights of way.
We use credit cards.

We scan.
And cite opinion as fact.
And get those facts from the greater depths of fiction.

We have a friend named Natasha who attends college in Minsk.
She found us on a social network and thinks we're hot.
Blake's a friend too.
He's friends with 286 of our other friends.
Including Natasha.
She thinks he's hot too.

We are all connected by six degrees of separation.
But we can only reach them through some third party's website.
Or pay to get access to these otherwise strangers.
Who will hardly ever hear, feel or care about the drop our of hat.

People do things then run to the computer to publish it for all to read.
Or they write fiction so the world believes they're doing something they really aren't.
But what they're doing (whether they're really doing it or not) has no impact on our lives.

Going forward
I'm not living in the past. Or knocking the present. But looking forward in the future, I hope we don't let technology or the euphoria we place on Web 2.0 replace the preciousness of real life or our accountability within it.

Personally, to me living 10,000 miles away from my native country with most of my family and friends being there, internet and all means of long-distance communications means a lot. Frankly, i couldn't live without having them 'in the reach of my fingertips'.
But i also try to go back to basics where i can. I call my (also long-distance) friends by phone, send them personal one-to-one e-mails (as snail mail letter would travel 2 months) and to those who are near me, hang out with them and try to be with them here and now. I try to balance both, because both of them do balance my existance. But i do try to keep that pristine personal touch in all of them.