We are losing meaningful things

I used 'meaningful' instead of 'concretical', but I was a bit torn.

I am thinking about very solid things, like 'card catalogs' of the olden times. Anyone remember those? They used to have them as a 'matter of fact' in libraries and other places that had vast amounts of information, whether books, music, movies, etc.

Now, I know that computers are very convenient. You type something in google, you get links, you can even use wikipedia and searchwords and whatnot. I don't think anyone in their right mind would want to go back to the olden ways and lose this quick, fast convenience - including me. I absolutely love how I can finally research efficiently, find answers to my mind's neverending questions (my family hated me because I wouldn't stop asking questions constantly (that they had no answers to), and I got very frustrated with that) . The intenet, archive.org, virtual things, street view in maps, it's all more valuable than its weight in gold. Absolutely wonderful technology.

However, the point I am trying to make here, is that there was also value in the old system. It was a different kind of value, though. The modern time fits the busy businessman perfectly. The olden system fits a free entity with lots of free time and who likes to tinker with things and enjoys the feel of those old cards. They were fun to browse through, it was like a small adventure to open and close physical drawers to find that one, precious treasure-card you're looking for. It was waiting for you somewhere in the dark caverns of the drawers, and you were closing in.. closing in.. browsing cards, seeing possibly all kinds of interesting names, topics, book names you would otherwise never heard of or known about, and perhaps are now inspired to check out some of them.

When your greedy hands finally, after lots of browsing, found the exact card you were looking for, you could almost swear some sort of fanfare was playing as you lifted the card high above your head and declared victory over the card catalogue's cunning ways of hiding things!

Now you just type something and get the information.

It's just not the same. Where's the adventure, where's the tactile feel, where's the deep satisfaction, when you take that prize of your effort to go try find the actual book it's pointing to, and this way, double your win?

We're losing this kind of 'tactile adventure' in the world. Everything is becoming 'touchscreens', which seems and sounds cool, until you realize it has no tactile feel. I don't want to drive a car that has only a 'flat surface' to operate EVERYTHING from. I WANT to turn knobs, dagnabit! I want to push buttons and adjust things by 'feel' with my fingers - I want to touch and get tactile feedback, I want to drag and turn, flick and click and pivot around, I want to twirl my fingers around a row of buttons to find the exact right one by feel and memory. I want to grab something and push or pull it, adjust things by hand and fingers.

I don't want to just slide my finger on some dirty glass, unfeeling canvas of nothing, just to feel nothing and do everything by eye, visually, waiting for the slow screen update to finish doing its thing before the computer crashes. I want to just adjust five different knobs, levers, buttons and switches in one second, because I know exactly what I am doing, not browse 20 different, slow menus just to get to the right options and then click wrong and have to start all over.

We're losing what our fingers and hands enjoy doing and were meant for - we're losing the 'concrete' things in favor of 'virtual' or 'digital' ones.

Phone book was a cumbersome, heavy thing, but that was humorously useful for many purposes. Without a physical phone book, you basically have nothing but just pure information. Even a robot from the future enjoys sliding their synthetic finger on its smooth surface until it finds the name. Flicking those thin and fragile pages was always fun. With a physical book, you can instantly be at any page you want anyway, and it doesn't even need batteries.

It can't be long until we won't have physical books anymore. We are too busy for books, we just need the text, the information.

But there's something about holding a book, looking at it, reading from it, turning its pages, smelling the ink and paper, closing it just to open it again later and continuing where you left off - which can be a small adventure in itself to figure out sometimes.

I don't particularly miss records or even CDs or DVDs, but there's something more tangible, something more real when you can just physically put something somewhere, and then something happens.

Our basics are crumbling, disappearing, and soon they will ALL be lost forever, and we can't get them back. We still use words like 'rewind' or 'fast forward', although we don't use audio or VCR tapes anymore. We still use the symbolism and the words, without anything concrete or meaningful to connect them to. We talk about 'films' or 'filming', even when talking about digital cameras and projectors. Even phones don't look like phones anymore. They look like .. 'rectangles', instead of something meaningful with a personality.

You can do fewer things with a rotary phone or any old enough a phone. However, you can't slam the receiver, as Seinfeld once mentioned, because there is no receiver. People don't even remember the word 'receiver' (watch the 'Kids React to Rotary Phones' and be shocked as even the most knowledgeable of them all calls the receiver 'a phone'!) anymore. There was something more tactile, more meaningful, more interesting, when you could hold the phone like it's a hard, solid object, not some fragile glass surface without feel, and then slam it with the passion of a thousand raging suns. Now you just push some virtual button to end a phone call. How exciting.

I am not saying these changes are completely bad, or that this advanced tech isn't marvellous (it is).

I am simply pointing out to the things we consider obsolete, and how we don't see the value of the things that soon will disappear forever.

Someone needs to rant the last praise for those old-world things that people only soon know from pictures, videos and memes.

Can anyone remember a world before 'memes' existed? What a beautiful, tactile world that was. Sure, it was slow, cumbersome, inconvenient. But there's something to be said about inconvenience - if you disagree, what are those Zen monks doing sweeping the floor so slowly? There's a point to it. They're not just old and fragile, they could sweep much faster, but their sweeping is slow deliberately, and for a reason.

Maybe the world has become too fast-paced, or maybe 'busy people' have made it too fast-paced, so now everyone has to be a 'busy-people'.

I just think there's something valuable lost when we can't browse card catalogs anymore, can't slam a receiver so the phone rings a bit and the table shakes, can't touch knobs, switches, levers or buttons and learn to do things by feel anymore. Goodbye, browsing a hard-cover paper book at my leisure. Good bye researching something from an encyclopedia or dictionary book, and being inspired to read about a plethora of various topics just by the virtue of accidentally bumping into them while trying to find something else. Good bye all that tactical fun and joy, and daily little adventures in the library.

Hello, super convenient, fast 'pure information' and fully digital world. Just kill me..

I miss 8 tracks. Especially when you wanted to rewind a song and all you had was fast forward.

Damn, the good ole days.

I would give anything for a time machine that took me back to a non digital world. And yes the irony of posting that online is not lost on me. But at least then, I felt alive and still had hope for the future. I spent many hours in the library and definitely miss that. The librarian was a huge inspiration to me in my life ,still to this day.

Anybody remember those books that you would reach around in school and friends and schoolmates would fill out some things and leave a poem or similar?

This is what facebook became, just that the book is open for everyone to read.

a reply to: Shoujikina

I'm still keeping hope alive, you will have to drag me kicking and screaming into this digital, everything now, me me me, age.
I've never owned a smartphone, still pay bills in person, only use cash and don't buy anything online.

I actually got rid of my flip phone back in January and just use a payphone now.
I only had to use it once but it felt nice to go oldschool, just like I grew up doing.
Trying to find one was another story but I don't mind walking and being active, so it doesn't bother me.

My email is my "phone on the wall" now, when I am gone, I'm gone and will get back to you when I get home, when I feel like it.
Friends don't like it but I don't really care.

Maybe the world has become too fast-paced, or maybe 'busy people' have made it too fast-paced, so now everyone has to be a 'busy-people'.

Don't worry about the rest of the world or the busy people are doing...go your speed.
If people thought more often, I would have a more valid reason to actually worry about what they thought.

originally posted by: lakenheath24
I miss 8 tracks. Especially when you wanted to rewind a song and all you had was fast forward.

Damn, the good ole days.

I miss when the horsies delivered the mail and I had to take a dump outdoors in a tiny shack during the winter. Modern conveniences suck.

a reply to: DrumsRfun
Bravo.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

had to take a dump outdoors in a tiny shack during the winter.

I still do that, ice fishing is great!!

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

Damn, I was just thinking how awesome it was to hit the outhouse with my Sears catalog, which as you know doubles as a wish book and toilet paper. Charmin aint got nuthin on the furniture section.

a reply to: Shoujikina


I think we are losing much more than you what you covered. When you go to Ebay and look at flashlights and then go to FB ....within seconds or minutes there's some more flash lights for your viewing pleasure. If you put up a meme on FB about Covid....boom , a window comes up clarifying what you represented....you know , to save everyone else from viewing dangerous info. Being a neanderthal when it comes to computers , I still know that info you search for becomes info that your computer will in the future keep showing you...for your viewing pleasure ...again!

if we look at the book 1984, we'd see where info was analyzed and changed daily to deliver the State's chosen narrative .....to keep the cattle in line and herded properly towards the chosen destination. Look at what's happened with the covid narrative .....wear a mask, don't wear one, wear two.......get a jab, get two, get your booster....get your covid passport or be restricted......no passport no fricking job ? I miss freedom from scrutiny !!!!

originally posted by: lakenheath24
Damn, I was just thinking how awesome it was to hit the outhouse with my Sears catalog, which as you know doubles as a wish book and toilet paper. Charmin aint got nuthin on the furniture section.

Send me one of them tell-ee-graphs when you do, I'll swing by with some whale oil so you can have reading light.

a reply to: Shoujikina

Our old systems of data collection and information retrieval simply cannot keep up or function effectively in the information age in which we live.

Paper and pen just is not up to the task hence digital systems supplant the old.

We are not losing meaningful things per-say but creating other systems and solutions up to the task at hand.

a reply to: Shoujikina

Totally agree, the sad part is a lot of people don’t know what they are missing.

For example. Many houses don’t even have real candles anymore, there are battery operated ones. Yes they are nice and probably less of a fire hazard but nothing compares to a real flame. All the senses are activated with real ones. It’s actually very comforting and relaxing.

I read an article that we are all becoming depressed and anxious because of being addicted to dopamine in the digital world. I believe it. I think cell phone/ internet addiction is real and growing.
Two occupations will grow wildly with our generation. Counseling services and anyone that helps neck problems.

a reply to: JAGStorm

Scented Wax Burners and candles are all over the place right now.

Most people i know have two or three in their homes.

Smell fantastic, so i don't know if that counts but plenty of Tea candles all over the shop.

One of modern man's greatest flaws is his unwillingness to Do things to Get things.

If he had his way, he wouldn't have to move a finger.

I often wondered if society would ever figure out that it's losing the whole point. I've stopped wondering by now but I have a good collection of real things and machines and I have to work at things to get things done. It gives me a mission every day. These kids don't know what they're missing.

It's good to know there are still some people who actually want to live life beyond the push button. Cheers.

a reply to: servovenford

These kids don't know what they're missing.

I have all kinds of antiques at my house, many still in perfectly working condition.
My kids were over here washing their cars. My son wanted to wring out his cloths but couldn’t get enough water out. I pulled out my antique wringer and they stood around and used it in amazement. I dare say they were having fun.

I miss how if someone called...they didn't get all hurt, pissy or insulted if you didn't return their call within 5 minutes.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

Telgraphs? Too modern for me. I still got my smoke signal card from my Cherokee great granny.

I do love some whale oil candles though. That smell...that whale oil smell.....smells like......old times.

originally posted by: lakenheath24
I do love some whale oil candles though. That smell...that whale oil smell.....smells like......old times.

I remember when Colonel Kilgore had an actual horse instead of them new fangled hell-ee-copters.

originally posted by: JAGStorm
a reply to: Shoujikina

Totally agree, the sad part is a lot of people don’t know what they are missing.

For example. Many houses don’t even have real candles anymore, there are battery operated ones. Yes they are nice and probably less of a fire hazard but nothing compares to a real flame. All the senses are activated with real ones. It’s actually very comforting and relaxing.

I read an article that we are all becoming depressed and anxious because of being addicted to dopamine in the digital world. I believe it. I think cell phone/ internet addiction is real and growing.
Two occupations will grow wildly with our generation. Counseling services and anyone that helps neck problems.

I find comical the idea that folks buy houses with fireplaces , yet never use them .