thought you were dead

Sent an email out the other week, and one of the recipients replied "thought you were dead".
Their reasoning was that because I had not been active online for some months, then I must have died, because everyone is online all the time.

How strange. I know many people who never use a computer, but who are most definitely alive. They go shopping in real shops, meet people face to face or use that old fashioned thing called a "phone".

I have myself spent several months (apart from my full time employment) attending committee meetings of various charities that I am a trustee of, sitting talking to friends, visiting relatives, helping a reading scheme in a local school and going for walks in the countryside with my dog. And all of them without a computer in sight! What a relief for me not to be staring at a small screen for hours on end.

So I make this comment, partly to reassure all my friends across the world, and acquaintances, that I am still very much here.

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.