Just like so many other software professionals, I like gadgets, I love my laptop...I almost sleep with it every night (please don't get ideas :P), I am over-possessive about my cellphone (can u imagine that I carry it even while having a bath...) and of course I cant live without my i-pod (it is essential for survival right !). Be it office or home you will always find me hitting a key or two on these electronic delights which fill my otherwise dull and boring life with work, music and communication. Yes... communication that is the key.
Well our parents would communicate with their friends and families face-to-face at home, in office, tea parties, get-togethers and all; but we...well we communicate through cellphones, short messaging services, google and yahoo chats, voice mails, video chats, emails and community forums.... well whats so wrong with that! Our ancestors would communicate with their neighborhood, community, their cities and towns by exploring; but we....well we explore them on search engines and google maps. Our parents took us to gardens, parks, zoos and sanctuaries to see wild life and nature; but we....well we give our kids encyclopedias, books and television channels to know about them. I spent my childhood playing on the school grounds and the huge lusciously green park in my colony with friends, cycling, skating, swimming in pools; but my kids...well they will spend their childhood with the television set, their X-box & gaming consoles, laptops and music systems. Now what is the big deal...what is wrong in this change....its okay right? isn't it alright? Or is it? Is this change really all okay? Isn't this question the most important and the most difficult one to answer at the same time?
Many a times I find myself questioning my very own fad with devices, gadgets, my electronic world. My heart keeps asking to open up and take a walk beyond these convenience appliances and get real ...really REAL. It keeps blaming me for stealing away from the next generation all the beautiful heaven made gifts which God blessed us with,..replacing them with man-made modern devices and leisure.
All of us....i think we all have a responsibility to preserve this earth...i know we have already eroded and damaged it to some point which is beyond repair. We have chagrined it for our selfish reasons, left it barren and charred with our self-centered human manifestations, tried to change the laws of nature to an extent which caused it to retaliate without understanding that we are reaping the same thorny bushes we ourselves have sown throughout these years. Each one of us....also have the responsibility to make sure that our children and their generations to come don't blame us for snatching away their chance to experience the bliss and the heavenly divinities which ought to be their birth right. Its our responsibility to stop the remaining portion of this earth to grow into another cement and steel jungle and to restore back some of its glory back to their original self.
But, honestly speaking who cares....me? you? any of us? do we really care? do we ourselves understand what we are missing? what the future generations to come would miss one day? do we know? No! We don't know and honestly speaking a very few of us care to know. Just try visiting a calm and serene place someday, may be go for a mountain trek, or a riverside walk, visit a sanctuary or take a forest safari...and then may be we can start to understand...to feel and experience the calm, the freshness, the serenity and the divinity. As far as I am concerned...it does affects me. When I look closely I can actually see all the colors of rainbow around the setting sun on a lonely hill,.. listen to the intimate whispers of innumerable creatures dwelling their little busy lives in colonies on the banks of a descant lake,.. smell the fresh essence of unadulterated freedom in the aroma of the flowing wind,...taste the delicious sweetness of the morning dew,.....and feel the blessedness of divinity within my very soul. It may sound like a aleatoric encounter or a linguistic rhetoric, but believe me its so true...at least for me, just give it a try and you will know for yourself. Just show a little care towards the world and I can promise that one does get rewarded in return with much more. Try a little tenderness, a small step towards reaching out a helpful hand to the mute planet, a little kindness in our hearts for the people around us, a little thought about the gift we shall be leaving for the future of mankind....and believe me we will all be rewarded.
From gadgets to very heart,...I guess we had a long talk :). Just so that all this conversation doesn't gets lost in the plethora of action items i ought to complete every day (remember i am a s/w gal after all), I will try to be thankful for all I have today and will definitely try to preserve all that I can for tomorrow and will urge all of you to do so... the smallest we can do is start appreciating! Keep loving your gadgets but try to love this world a bit more.
