Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Over the hill programming my proverbial VCR.

I've been thinking about writing this blog for a while but then I forget.  No, this blog is not about how one loses their memory when they get older, but it has to do a bit with the mind.  I've read and heard stuff about how the mind is plastic.  Basically, if you don't use it, you lose it.  The brain is essentially a muscle.  You have to keep training it constantly to keep it in form.  I remember the good old days when I was younger and my brain just worked.  No questions asked.  And what did I do?  Nothing really.  Acted like I knew it all.
I look back and think about the days when VCRs had the program feature where you can set a timer to record a show.  Yes, I'm that old, but let's get back to the VCR, shall we?  I remember the common notion of the day.  Our adults did not know how to program the VCR.  The kids would be recruited to program the VCR to record whatever show their parent wanted.  As a child, I remember people talking about this phenomenon and wondered what was so difficult about programming a VCR.  Nothing really.  But now that I'm an adult living in an adult technological world that is slipping rapidly between my fingers, I don't want to learn how to program the proverbial VCR.  I might as well have some kid do it for me.  They can do it so much faster!
I've been on Facebook for a while now and Facebook does not intimidate me at all.  I do it everyday and while there are features I haven't explored, it's only my laziness that prevents me from working on my security settings (yet again).  It's not something overwhelming to me, though.
However, lately I've been fighting with Google and Google+.  I would forget about it and choose not to learn how to use it but my business depends on it.  I need to be up to par and be a presence.  I need to understand it and follow up on it.  And when I try to understand it, I realize that I'm trying to find something that has already slipped through my fingers.  Perhaps I should have kept current when G+ started.  I didn't think it would become important.  I wish Facebook was as important.  Time to use my plastic mind?
But in the process of learning and pressing a million buttons and in the process of my frustrations, I think back to warm memories of being an insufferable know it all.  Yes, I know how to program the VCR.  It's really quite easy.  Why can't you do it yourself?  Answer, "because you little brat, you'll know why when you grow up!"  Yes, the little brat has grown up and perhaps it's pay back time but oh how I would love for someone to program my proverbial VCR, right now.  I mean, I need help with all the new stuff out there.  G+, Instagram, pinterest, twitter, snap chat and whatever else.  All the fancy apps to call a taxi and a million different things.  I'm sorry.  I should have known better than to be a brat.  I should have known better than to be selfish and self centered.  Is that part of growing up?  Perhaps.  But I can't change that.  It's the past.  It does not exist.  As I've said in a past blog, the present is what's there.
The present.  Me, over the hill, and dreaming of someone to help me program my proverbial VCR!
Until next time,
TTR

2 comments:

  1. I almost gave up on twitter. Almost. But I didn't. And I am still learning.

    I am half your age?

    ReplyDelete
  2. I guess learning never stops, but it's harder to deal with change as one gets older. I haven't discovered twitter yet! No thank you.

    ReplyDelete