Hitting the Virtual Wall

I am supposed to be here setting up the first blog entry for the Extemporaneous Elder Council that I started in my neighborhood, and I got off on a frustrating tangent about the supposed ease of mobile blogging. Well, I have sent out two mobile entries now with no token response...this was played up as being easy! Just create your picture with text, send it from your cell phone and magically, this projection of yourself would manifest on the Internet. It hasn't happened that way. Instead, it's become frustrating and confusing...it's also very humbling.

It's humbling because sometime ago, I realized that all this technology was beginning to pass me by and that made me feel out of touch or obsolete...somehow removed from the world. So I decided that I wanted to explore new technology. And who better to take along with me than a group of elders. We have a lot of the same questions. Many of us have never sent a text message or even heard of a podcast or MMS. How does an mp3 player work? Is that an Ipod? We sort of know what a blackberry is, but not really. We have computers and email, but the stuff we're talking about is so much more...strange and a little scary even. However, if we could get together and talk about this stuff, then we could at least go out into the world and participate in conversation or recognize some of this new language when we heard it or saw it. We are making an attempt to stay connected and to participate in this young, new century.

I started this council to discuss the direction of our culture, of aging in the 21st century, and the impact of technology on our lives and our futures. Small talk...big ideas. Turns out we stir up some deep conversation. We don't all agree all the time, which is wonderful. We try to be honest and respectful. It's interesting to hear what we have to say. We are exploring aging and aging pertains to nearly everything. We are quickly finding out that technology and the Internet can apply to just about anything too.

So I got frustrated about wanting to do something cool during our council tomorrow, like send a mobile blog post and then go the computer station and see it, but it became unproductive overload...nearly an hour later, I realized that I had gone completely off task. I decided to just get down to it and create our first post the old fashioned way--by typing it from my computer complete with cords, keyboard and life-size screen. And it worked. Maybe I was trying to put the wagon before the horse. I'm sure this is a pattern of some sort. Maybe the elders can help me figure that one out too.

We'll see.

I hereby call the Extemporaneous Elder Council into virtual existence. Listen for us chipping away at that virtual wall. We welcome your responses.