Sometimes we, as Americans take things for granted. No, not human beings, but as Americans. We have it all I would say. All of it is not free but all is available to those who can pay the price. What is all in this context? All is comfort, luxury and our needs and desires fulfilled. Today I got home and had to get the number to Photo Shop World to see if it will be cancelled on Friday. I live 2 hours away from Orlando Florida, home of this years Photoshop World. I wanted to do some interviews and PR things for the website. Well, anyway I had no dial tone on my phone. I thought it was my phone, but then my computer could not get online so therefore my phone is out. Of course, it is not out from lack of payment just from the fact that it is out to piss me off.
I usually dont need the phone but tonight I have to call a friend to make sure we are still meeting up later, I have to call some business colleagues and of course the Photoshop world organizers. I feel like a sitting duck in my own home and I this is why I write this months philosophy piece. We have so much available to us here. If we want light, we flip a switch, clean water is no more then 10 feet away from any spot in the house and the world is at our fingertips with Television, telephones and the Internet. With a 140 mile per hour hurricane Frances coming straight through Florida, it should make for even more complications mainly power to our areas.
This makes you wonder what we would do to get along with out it. I know taking away basic utilities from the entire world would cripple us but what if maybe at any given time 25% of those typically with a phone / power just lost it for 5 hours a day and randomly at that. Dont you think we would be a lot more conservative with our conversations or energy use and possibly seek other ways of power / communicating during this downtime?
As a more fortunate society, we should remind ourselves every once in a while that our technologies are reasonably new compared to the age of ourselves. The mainstream Internet is less than 15 years old, power maybe 100 and telephones 115 year old give or take a bit. So, in this short time we have grown reliant on the comforts and adapted to forget other more stable ways of power, communications, and entertainment. Try to not use any lights, AC, telephone, or internet for an entire day and you will see how well off we really have it.