The Days That Are Fading.
I have had a heck of a day. It has not been intellectually stimulating. It has not been a lot of fun. But it’s not unusual that random thoughts simply pop up in mt head after days like this.
This one was particularly interesting. I was on Skype to a good friend of mine who now calls Vietnam home (he’s actually my boss now – but he’ll never read this). I heard a noise that I have not heard in 20 years.
A dot matrix printer. I simply could not place it. And then it all came back to me. That terrible noise.
And this got me to thinking.
It’s easy to tell our kids about those inventions have made our lives so different.
Everyone always says the Internet. It’s not complicated, it has changed the paradigm of how we communicate. We now chat and interact and conduct business at the speed that lazy electrons can get their asses to us via satellites or undersea cables.
But I am going to throw my hat into the ring about one of our forgotten heroes – the fax machine.
Special paper, dropped lines and then the tech went mad. Color and response via keyboards. It was magic.
And there was something else that people do not remember about the age of the fax machine. You had to read the fax. Someone could scribble on the page – but you really had to focus.
It wasn’t ‘Calibri (Body) 11 Point’ you had to really pay attention. And that gave you you time to think.
There were usually two stock response. Send again or ‘I think that the dot matrix naked image is not meant for me. And you are a very special person, with very special interests.’
But you had to read and absorb.
Email is incredible. The cloud is lovely. But sometimes I think it’s a little too quick. Our responses are too easy. We don’t digest the content – we simply have a response template in our heads. It’s very, very dangerous.
We will all make mistakes. The world is far to quick. But I’ll bet you one thing – and this proves my point. How many of you have opened up a mail that you have just sent? Just to check.
You are the victims of the non fax era. Read.
I am terrible at it – but I’m learning.
The Picking Ground. 