Life is so very different today. A child’s life is so complicated. Between social media and texting everyone knows what everyone is doing. It is actually scary in a way. Some people may not get this reference but big brother is watching you.
When I was a child we did not have home computers, cell phones, DVRs, DVDs, IPods…you get the idea. We had to watch a TV show when it played, there were only three networks and 4 local channels and no cable. We listened to transistor radios, rocked to our stereos, spent most of our timeon landlines with no call waiting. I rode my bike, skateboard and roller skates. Watched the color TV in the living room and when I was a teen I got my own princess phone and my own black and white TV. I still have it and if we could use theantenna which we can’t anymore it would still work fine.
If I sound nostalgic I am in some ways, I miss some of the fun of it. We rely so much today on computers and cells that I sometimes I feel like we are losing some of our brain capacity.
I hated to look stuff up in the dictionary at the time or the encyclopedia because I didn’t know how to spell it. But now I realize I was thinking and learning a lot more than in the age of Google. And I miss some of the simple joys of my childhood. Laying in my bed, with my stereo playing and writing a story or reading a good book. I still do but it I have my computer playing a fave show tune and I’m writing in my lap top. It is the same but it isn’t.
What does all this have to do with my book, Different Is Beautiful? Well it shows that I am a different generation and that I don’t understand some of things that modern kids face. I just feel for them and the complicated lives that they face ahead of them. People always love modern life and gadgets and I play with it all too. I own an IPod, cell phone, dvr, I text and own an e-reader (though I held out for long, long time and I still prefer a book.) I do look things up on google all the time and I do use text on my phone. It’s all exciting and fun.
But the dark side of it is very, very dark. There were no hackers, or predators who could just enter a home through a computer. And when you were bullied it was not on shame site where people all over your local area can see you. Lies only went so far now they can go viral. People couldn’t create fake personas and catfish you. There have always been bad, evil people but they never before had such access to children. Terrifying.
Also bullies were not able to let everyone in a school know what they did to their victims with a push of key. They couldn’t have a buddy film them as they beat up a poor kid because they wore glasses, they were a different color, had a different faith orsexuality. You were not outed for kicks by angry bullies who want to hurt others. Bullies have it so easy and because the modern technology is so anonymous it is hard to catch them. Laws are out there to protect us but unless it comes to physical harm it is rarely pursued.
My book is about the opposite of all that. Love, acceptance. It is to teach small children to make their future bright, happy and loving. To not only accept others but to cherish them. To invoke another reference to show my age, I would like to see the next age truly believe in IDIC, Infinite diversity in infinite combinations. The great Gene Roddenberry came up with that and it is my ideal every day.
Love is the way, if we choose to follow it.
