The trouble with getting something new like this, is that you very quickly go from being quite excited about it, to just expecting it, and all the goodness wears off. When I first got on the internet, in fact, for the first several years of being on the internet, I used a 2400bps modem. When I think of how I used to type in a web address, leave the room and watch tv, and then come back to see that very basic webpage only half loaded fifteen minutes later, it makes me wonder why I ever kept up with the internet at all. At the time, it was all I could have expected I guess. And when I got my first 28.8, damn, I thought I had lightning fast speed. I remember those lovely 10minute downloads that used to take me hours; I thought I was a hot shot, as quick as the fastest hacker. My first 56k was a disappointment. It sped me up, but not so much; living out in rural America means having phone lines that can only handle about 36k worth of data. And now I have broadband, and over the course of the very few days I've had it, I've seen myself getting frustrated because my speed, which is, at the very worst, still twice as fast the internet I've suffered these past few years, is just too damn slow. Human beings are ungrateful critters.
I guess that most things in life are a matter of perspective. Had I had a day's access to my new broadband connection back in 1994 when I was just beginning to experience my 2400bps modem, I probably would have given it all up in frustration. But as long as all I knew was 2400bps, I was glad to have it. I remember being in the Alps this Summer with Jody, and we were joking about how bad 80's television programs would undoubtedly have used those mountains as metaphors. From the Spaghetti joint where we ate dinner one night, the little tiny town we were in looked absolutely huge. The buildings were towering. And off in the distance, were these mountains that, from that perspective, you could hardly distinguish from snow-capped, albeit slightly oddly jagged, hills. They didn't look like the giants that they really were. And we laughed, thinking about how easily that could be applied to life. How we don't see the big picture, but instead how we focus on momentary passing problems; How we tear ourselves apart over molehills when we're in the midst of mountains.
posted by Sarie @
6:43 PM
>Comments: 0
