Communication gaps

Funny how we are all so dependent on connections. Once upon a time this used to mean the people we knew or the people our parents and friends knew, but today it is all about telephone links, be they for private conversations, office intercom systems, mobile telephones, fax machines, email and, of course, the Internet. This is about as useful as the people who know people that we need to know, but in a way it is a huge handicap to not be able to get in touch in the good old-fashioned way. In some ways, of course.

Why am I on this track today? After many weeks of being completely in touch with the outside world - I am really not sure whether that is a blessing or the proverbial curse, since instead of my online messengers popping up and people spitting angst at me via the Web, I get text messages from people who need help of some kind or the other, along with the occasional actual telephone call on one of the landlines that feed into our house. Like I said, curse or blessing - the jury is still out on that one.

I know and fully well agree that to be so connected is a good thing. I remember when I was writing a column along with the occasional article for publications overseas and had to run around to find stamps, mailboxes or, at the very least, a post office. Today, having very recently seen the mail piled up in the local post office near where we live, I shudder to think that I was once so dependent on a system that is, on the whole, extraordinarily efficient, but slow and tedious and troublesome. Today, all I need to do is get online, talk to whoever editor needs whatever written and send it off with the click of a key or two and very little effort or hassle.

Ok, so there is a point to this little rant. The Net is not working here. Both broadband connections are phut, kaput, not functioning, and I am using a dial-up connection that could do the same at any time. Which makes me write frantically faster just to make sure that I get this over with before I get bumped off the line. Which means that I better stop right now or risk having to do this all over again!