Brave New World?

Mark listened to a podcast about a new musical group - Pomplamoose. He was so impressed that he bought their "album".... but he had nothing to show for his purchase. The "album" was an MP3 file on iTunes. And this couple make all their own recordings in their San Francisco home/apartment. Once they finish a song - a 1-2 day project - they upload it to YouTube. The video is also done by them - a new style of what-you-hear-is-what-you-see. To check it out - click here for Pomplamoose. And NPR has had several stories about authors who now publish their own works - either through a small company that prints on demand or as electronic media. On this last trip, when I inched my way down the aisle on the plane to the bathroom, I noticed how many people had laptops, iPods, Kindles and other electronic stuff. My seatmate had a new iPad. BTW, he played games the whole time. All this makes me realize that I am living in a time of vast changes. My grandmother was born at the beginning of the 20th century and died almost at the end. I marveled at all the changes in the world that she had lived through - cars, airplanes, space travel, computers, TV..... and many more. How did she handle all that change and not feel overwhelmed? And now I find myself in the same boat. The old record store, the morning newspaper, the land line telephone are all fading away. And I am just fine. I guess that you have to embrace the change or cling to the past. So I am shifting my paradigm and moving forward. We don't buy CD's anymore - we buy MP3 files. I don't buy books anymore (well, rarely) - I use the library and downloads. If I need to learn something, I check out Google. My laptop (not my desktop) gets hauled around the house like a magazine. If I need to know the capital of Botswana, I can find it on the Internet - not in an encyclopedia or atlas. I need a recipe for the cauliflower Mark picked in our garden - I look online.  And in a tiny house where space is a premium and we have very little room for bookcases, no books is not so bad. We opted to not get a land line for the phone when we moved.  I like this better as I can put my cell in my pocket and never miss a call. Well, if I feel the vibration, I don't miss it. We rarely watch one of the standard TV stations. We download programming through our Tivo box and watch - COMMERCIAL FREE - what we want when we want. All these changes are great! And, just think - my granddaughter will know no different. This will all be her normal. It is not a good or a bad thing..... it is just a thing that is happening. But I do worry that as we move on, we will lose some of the wonderful parts of the past..... like the smell of a library filled with books. So I guess I will think about what will be gone for awhile.