Okay, let me get this straight. What “everyone” is saying (you know “everyone” and “the experts” and “them”….) is that in the “old days” it used to be so much better because…XYZ…and now everything is moving too fast and no one is spending time to connect with each other “like we did in the old days”….is that about what we’ve been hearing/reading/understanding about what is going on today?

I finally have been able to download a few of the episodes of “Mad Men” (which is about the slick world of advertisers, men and women of the 1950’s) and am horrified about how misogynistic it is towards women.   Even though I came along a decade later, there were still vestiges of that era that wafted its way through my growing up years.  Trust me, even in the “free love” decades of the 60’s and 70’s, people as a whole were still hiding behind their facades for the most part.   Even in the 1980’s when the world really let loose and fantastic creative ways of acting out were expressed through art, music and the way we dressed … we were all still not completely communicating with each other individually and at a group level.  We were rushing to there to get away from here.

In the 1990’s and the beginning of the 00’s, the internet and the mighty web sprouted to life.  I’ll never forget that feeling the first time I communicated with someone back and forth in real time.  It was almost sensual the level of immediate intimacy that took place.  I could definitely “feel” someone’s personality just by how they communicated with their words, because there wasn’t the distraction of the person or any of my other senses.  Just the words.

And now we find ourselves in today where most of us are interacting by at least one social networking group if not two or three or more.  I must confess that it does kind of mess with the judge in my brain when I’m walking through a University campus and see almost everyone that I come across fervently looking at their iphone while texting madly with one thumb. The one hope is that evidently hormones are stronger than any smart phone can come up with yet and so where the pheromones are flying, people are engaging in conversation and direct eye-contact.  In so many ways, our lives are so much richer today than they’ve ever been.  As a species, we humans are more able to connect with each other today on a deeper level then ever.  And therein lays the rub.  I’m learning that the human condition is such that we will always be looking for that next thing that will make our lives the best ever. I’m sure it is an evolutionary composite of our personalities. That we are always striving to improve our lives.  The trick is to remember, when we are able, to enjoy those moments of  in-between here and there.

I don’t know how you remember things, but some of my sweetest memories are what I call “postcards from the Divine”.  I will remember the color of the setting sun on clouds at 8:00pm on a summer night.  My brain recalls the warm cream/yellow of the clouds with the pinkish highlight on the sides and the brush of purple on the bottom.  I’m pretty sure that these “postcards” are what help me remember the specialness of everyday.

Remember that it only takes a moment to stand in the middle of now and open your arms up wide to accept it.  I’m a collector of these kind of postcards of yesterday and today for reviewing tomorrow.  How about you?  What postcards will you give to yourself?