Cadillac w/o Radio
After retiring from the Navy nearly 36 years ago, I was recruited to work with a so-called beltway bandit, a consulting firm in Virginia doing contract work for the government. It was a small company and I got to know the owner, himself also a retired naval officer. One day I rode someplace with him in his Cadillac, and noticed that it didn’t have a radio. No radio? He said his wife’s car had a radio, but he had ordered his car without a radio to prevent himself from turning it on as he drove to work mornings and hearing the news that inevitably would distract him, make him less productive, and ruin his day with things about which he could do nothing but worry and be upset.
During silent retreats this summer it was simple to do daily +Time blog postings. MacBook was easiest with a full size keyboard and process that is more intuitive for me, but when there was no WiFi there was always 3G for the iPad. My daily habit was to post to my +Time blog, then go to CaringBridge and post to my CB Journal a daily notice and link to +Time so that friends who were counting on the early morning CB notification “ding” would know the +Time posting was up.
In the middle of June, CB admin did a major enhancement. When they finished, my CaringBridge page would no longer accept Journal updates or Photo changes (still will not two months later). Trying several days, I finally gave it up and started posting a daily notification and link on my Facebook page, though it no longer reached the same folks, because friends my age pretty much don’t do Facebook.
Although I’d had a Facebook page for several years I’d never posted on it other than the initial setup. I’d always accepted friend requests but never scrolled down to read what friends and friends’ friends were posting. However, the middle of June when I started posting on Facebook a daily notification and link to my +Time blog, I started scrolling down my Facebook page to see what was there. Informative, I saw why it’s called a social networking website, good for keeping in touch. Don’t understand it making the owners multi-billionaires, don’t need to understand, it’s the way it is.
Sometimes informative and fun, Facebook soon reminded me why I’d not made it a habit early on. Reading that it was time to take clothes out of the dryer. Finding a religious soapbox reminiscent of nutfringe soapbox preachers I used to pass on the sidewalk across the street from St. Andrews Anglican Cathedral in Sydney. Reading that it was time to head off to WalMart. In my mind, wondering whether inanity is still a word. Reading political rantings so discourteous, unkind, certitudinous, searing with anger, hatred, so ineffective as argument, discussion, debate, persuasion, as to mark what has tragically become NewAmerican. Seeing this is so disappointing, discouraging and depressing, and when read early in the morning so ruinous to my day, that I have to give it up, the scrolling down and occasional commenting.
A longstanding practice around here is helpful to my mental health! Knowing how down I get reading or seeing something in which a child is hurt or killed, my family protect me! They change the TV channel and disappear newspaper pages! “Don’t let Dad read that.” They wouldn’t let me read The Shack and others. Some Facebook postings have been so negative and have brought me so far down that I’m giving it up permanently and relying on Linda to let me know if there’s something I ought to know or would enjoy. Because several have asked me to do so, I’ll continue making my daily postings, but it’ll be post-and-run. +Time, which is the post-game extra time I’m now playing in until the Referee blows the whistle, is too dear to spend it down in the dumps anguishing over horrendous, rude, inhumane things that people in their political, social and religious certitude say to others and about others, and about others' ideas and opinions and views, things that I can’t help or do anything about except weep.
It’s a beautiful day. Instead of driving along Beach Drive as usual, on the way to my Monday morning meeting, this is a day to stop by and say hello to a couple of friends. I wonder if they miss me as much as I miss them.
TW+