Thursday, April 21, 2011

technologic backlash?

Will there be a backlash against technology? A resistance toward all things electronic and robotic? Will people again write letters, hold a book, pick up the phone, meet a person in a coffee shop rather than an online chat-room, put on a record? There is no doubt that technology has been and will be influential and beneficial but I think these tangible human activities will become romantic again. I think they'll make a come-back! Although the community who already does cherish these old-fashioned non-technological amenities is small, it is supportive. Maybe I am just being hopeful because I want to sell books but also make a living...but I don't think that humans will ever truly lose the desire to hold an actual book, flip through the pages, walk through a library. I think these things will never die because they connect us with generations before us and remind us what it is to be human. I love the things technology provide; I can't live without my iphone, email, ipod, I mean I am writing this in a blog... But people will always need to tell stories and these stories will need a place more romantic than the shelf of a Kindle.
Here is a poem by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the co-founder of City Lights Booksellers and Publishers and wonderful artist, which perfectly encapsulates the romantic old-fashioned "fireflies" of humanity.

"Are There Not Still Fireflies"

Are there not still fireflies
Are there not still four-leaf clovers
Is not our land still beautiful
Our fields not full of armed enemies
Our cities never bombed to oblivion
Never occupied by iron armies
speaking iron tongues
Are not our warriors still valiant
ready to defend us
Are not our senators still wearing fine togas
Are we not still a great people
Is this not still a free country
Are not our fields still ours
our gardens still full of flowers
our ships with full cargoes

Why then do some still fear
the barbarians are coming
coming coming
in their huddled masses
(What is that sound that fills the ear
drumming drumming?)

Is not Rome still Rome
Is not Los Angeles still Los Angeles
Are these really the last days of the Roman Empire

Is not beauty still beauty
And truth still truth
Are there not still poets
Are there not still lovers
Are there not still mothers
sisters and brothers
Is there not still a full moon
once a month

Are there not still fireflies
Are there not still stars at night
Can we not still see them
in bowl of night
signalling to us
our so-called manifest destinies?

No comments:

Post a Comment