Where are you, or why are you not online?

I had an email from a friend recently. He thought that just because I had not been regularly posting on my blog, that maybe something had happened to me again. Well, I have news for you, dear friend. I am alive and kicking. Just because I do not feel the need to get a daily dose of electronic life, does not mean that I have ceased to exist.

There are many, many people who happily go about their daily life totally untouched by email, mobile phones, or any other online activity. (Several members of my own family for starters.) My activities over the last few months have kept me very busy both daytime and evenings, and I will admit that I have then been too tired to go online for weeks at a time. Attending charity meetings, regaining my fitness (cycling, swimming and this last few weeks even skiing!), and that usual one of "spending more time with my family" as well as my full-time employment and going to Baha'i prayer meetings and such.

I am online now because of the snow having stopped our plans to go out, and because I have been looking up information to help sort out getting sound on my Acer laptop running Linux.

review of the year

Every TV and radio program at the moment, as well as each of the newspapers, is doing a review of the year, so naturally I have been thinking of the year just ending, and what I might expect in 2009.
It has been an eventful year and the media have made new celebrities (Olympic sportsmen), and villains (Bankers, mostly). I do not subscribe to this cult of the celebrity stuff myself. If there is any role model that I follow it is teachings of those whom I consider truly great - the Founders of the religions. I try to live simply, without being a show-off. I try to be kind and helpful to those around me, and take responsibility for my actions.

For me, I have noticed an increase in receptiveness to the message of the Baha'i Faith in all the people that I have met. Poor health has at times limited what I am able to do and I need to take more care over my diet and get more exercise.

"Bring thyself to account each day, lest death, unheralded shall come upon thee." Baha'i Writings

we think ourselves indestructible?

"The time fore-ordained unto the peoples and kindreds of the earth is now come. The promises of God,as recorded in the holy Scriptures, have all been fulfilled." Baha'i Faith.

Travelling to work in the morning and back home in the evening on a bus gives me time to observe people in the town. I am still each day astonished by the silly and often dangerous things they do. Cycling the wrong way on a one-way street I regularly see, but yesterday it was someone driving a car the wrong way! He realised his error only when faced with a bus coming the other direction!
Then there are those who walk across the road stepping out into moving traffic. What is worse when I see a parent drag a child across a road, when the child but not the parent has seen the car coming towards them.

We spend so much time thinking about this physical world, and almost nothing about what we are to face when we leave it.

So much to do

We are living our lives so much in the electronic realm that keeping up with it all takes more and more of our time. Websites and Blogs to update, reading email, maintaining contacts with friends and colleagues through both professional sites and social networking ones - we risk spending such a large part of our waking lives with them that we leave no room for meeting in 'real life'.
Never mind virtual reality 'games' and such - I am off to meet living people! To the office where I meet the team I work with, then out for a meal with the family this evening.

Back in the thick of it

Or should that be, back in the thick of *I.T.* ? I have been away from all things technical for the last two weeks - mostly walking, with a bit of surfing and swimming. Leave behind the computer, the phone and all that sort of thing. "What is the weather going to be" was answered by "are there clouds or blue sky on the horizon"!

Sometimes it pays to see just how dependent we have become on technology. It seems many of us could not function at all without it. Of course, there are those like myself whose work is based on computers, whether that be administering them or programming them. I am thinking more of how we seem to 'need' technology for entertainment. Gone are the days for most people (did they ever exist for some?) of gathering together to talk, tell stories, sing or dance, or enjoy walking in the countryside.

In a couple of weeks I am taking our family to an Open Air concert, complete with full orchestra, singers and a firework finale. We shall go with a picnic meal and (given that this is England in summer) raincoats.

I will 'escape' to the country whenever I can. How about you?

"The city is the home of the body but the country is the home of the soul" (Baha'i writings)

What a busy life!

Progression and advancement at work - I have been asked to take on more responsibilities, joining a working group to develop and improve our software testing methods and systems, and to become a mentor for some of the less experienced staff.

Together with unpaid voluntary work designing membership systems, it has left me with little time spare this week.

There is a danger that I will neglect my family, but I am determined that should not happen, so for the last two nights we have removed the table cloth and been doing a 1500 piece jigsaw puzzle. Many years ago as a teacher I first became aware of 'latch key kids' whose parents were so busy making money that they had no time to share with their children.

We all live in a world where the pace of life seems to be getting faster and faster, yet the quality of life is not improving.

I am reminded of the poem by William Henry Davies -
"What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare. No time to stand beneath the boughs and stare as long as sheep or cows. ..."