“Why, in my day . . .”

Growing up, I recall elders recounting tales about life before some innovation. Today, the advent of artificial intelligence (AI) is a hinge moment like so many technological advances I’ve experienced in the last 40 years. I look back on past breakthroughs with wonder and nostalgia. I’m trying to come to terms with current developments.

1984 – Desktop Computers

I roll my eyes when young volunteer coordinators enquire if I’m comfortable with computers. In 1984, my boss handed me boxes for an Apple IIe desktop computer and an amber monitor (orange type on a black screen) and told me to set them up so I could write marketing and training materials. 

1989 – Internet

Today, that old setup is quaint and humorous—a one-color monitor, 5¼ inch diskettes, a computer that didn’t connect to the Internet . . . because the World Wide Web wasn’t mainstream until 1989-90.

When the Internet became commonplace, we used painfully slow telephone dial-up modems with their crackling static and rubber band sound. Modems meant I no longer had to courier work product files to my customers on diskettes, which had shrunk to 3½ inches. 

1994 – 2001 – Search Engines and Websites

In the mid-1990s, search engines like Yahoo, AOL, and Netscape came on the scene and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) helped people, products, and businesses get found. Google started in 1998. It’s hard to imagine a time before Google, when research meant visiting a brick and mortar library to use printed resources that might be checked out to someone else.

As websites grew common, having one for my business became important. A friend and I designed and rolled out mine in 2001. Several versions followed until I retired it several years ago.

1996 – Cell Phones 

For me, the next technological cliff came around 1996 or 1997 when small cell phones arrived. They made calls. That’s it. If you had the patience to tap number buttons repeatedly, you could eke out texts. No camera. No Internet. No email. No music. No maps. Next, I owned a different dumb phone that opened to a qwerty keyboard. Around 2005, I acquired a fancier flip phone with a camera. Woohoo! Before long my 35mm digital camera was obsolete.

2007 – Smartphones

The world shifted dramatically again when the iPhone was introduced in 2007—the best of the available smartphones. Cell phones had enabled me to keep up on client calls and emails seamlessly when I was away from my home office—in other words, an early version of remote work. Staying connected with family became immensely simpler too.

2007 – 2008 – Facebook & Twitter

The advent of social media—Facebook and Twitter along with their many step-children—has transformed the world. How we discover, understand, and consume news. How we see ourselves and connect with or demonize others. There’s no denying social media’s far-reaching impact. Despite my mixed feelings about Facebook, it’s where a number of readers find our blogs. 

Now – Artificial Intelligence

Evidence of artificial intelligence is everywhere—Siri and Alexa, helpful spelling prompts in texts and emails, blank-eyed, AI-drawn models in ads, and who knows how many AI functions we are unaware of. 

AI makes me uneasy. But I don’t want to be a Luddite, so I’ve told myself I really ought to dig in, try to understand its scope, possibilities, and implications . . . insofar as any non-AI developer can. I’ve begun experimenting with ChatGPT as a research tool (think of all the data it accesses), but it’s never going to be writing my blogs! Count on 100% Ellen, all the time.

Five years from now, when the next technological wonder launches, who knows what we’ll be saying?

Sandwich Party!

Before surgery I read up on painkillers. Bottom line, I was grateful that options existed and realistic about accepting possible reactions. Jimmy John’s sandwiches were never mentioned in that patient information.

My first night post-operative I looked around my room, stared into what I thought was a giant security television screen (aka a dark window), pulled together all the visual clues available, and determined that there was a sizeable Jimmy John’s sandwich party happening across the hall. Giant carts of food appeared to be going into a room with people following. I thought I saw, or heard, that the party was in honor of my surgeon. 

Not eating in the prior thirty hours made a sandwich appealing. I think I’ve only eaten a Jimmy John’s tuna salad special at a corporate lunch meeting. I remember because I was the last person choosing a box. Tuna salad, tuna salad, tuna salad. Three boxes of the same choice. The only decision was if I was hungry enough to eat a Jimmy John’s tuna salad sandwich.

According to hospital people watching me that night, I decided I needed to freshen up before heading to the party and attempted to get out of bed dragging tubes and lines and monitors. I asked for a clean gown, something less revealing, and my personal bag so I could brush my hair, wash my face, and find my undies. I was ready to socialize. Maybe celebrate that surgery was over, chat about the joy of warm blankets, or share escape plans.

What’s fascinating is how in a somewhat dark situation, something deep in my mind took stock of what it could observe and found the potential for a few minutes of joy as well as the possibility of grabbing a sandwich, maybe a cold soda, and a little time to chit chat with absolute strangers. I am an introvert, and not fond of fast foot sandwiches on small loaves of bread. In normal times I would need a serious reason to head into a room of strangers, especially if wearing a lousy hospital gown. But that night a party sounded awesome.

Physicians have known since Plato that there is a direct correlation between the mind, body and health. The psychological and physical are not separate but are vitally linked in healing the body. When the painkillers were not taking care of what my body was experiencing, my simple belief is that my mind accepted responsibility for creating a happier framework. In the absence of other stimuli to distract focus from what was hurting, I planned that party room. I made decisions about whether I was ready to have chips (not), if a diet cola or a lemon-lime soft drink would taste better (lemon-lime), how to blend in with all the people in uniforms or street clothes (unresolved). My problem solving and creativity pulled me through a night that could have been worse. 

This is the power of human vitality. We can live, grow, develop in many situations, not only on sunny days but also during threatening storms. Be gentle with your expectations if this is not a time to go for the stars. Share a Jimmy John’s with a friend. Enjoy a mini party, if only in your mind. Wear a robe if your gown hangs open in the back.

Hiding Out

Porcelain, cardboard, tin, and plastic Jack o’ lanterns grin from a ledge in the laundry room. I moved them to the basement the morning after Halloween along with candy corn lights and a gauzy witch that cackles when someone walks past. Here’s my sad secret, Halloween is nowhere near my favorite holiday. I find it kind of scary for other reasons.

In Luxemburg, WI there was no trick or treating. We wore our costumes to school and at night a parade happened on Main Street. Candy and substantial treats were thrown from the town’s firetrucks. Many of the town’s 400 or so residents, including many who drove in from their farms, stood on the sidewalk to collect the goodies.  Then everyone joined the parade for about a six block walk to where a bonfire burned at the fairgrounds. Adults and kids partied and danced way after a school night’s normal bedtime.

When we moved to Milwaukee my mother declared her children were not going to ring strangers’ doorbells to beg for candy. She called the city’s Halloween traditions dangerous. And she wasn’t going to encourage others to ring our doorbell. So instead of a parade or walking the neighborhood with other kids, our parents took us to a shopping mall for the special treat of dinner out. If stores offered a treat bag, we were allowed to accept. 

My brother managed to weasel out of the family outing after a couple of years. He claimed he was going to help a friend distribute candy so the parents could walk with younger siblings. I snuck out one year with a girlfriend whose mother called to invite me to a sleepover party. It was a ruse because they felt so bad that I had not experienced the joy of running around in the dark with a pillowcase to collect candy. 

Only I didn’t really find it all that fun. I heard my mother’s disgust with kids begging for candy and caution about the city’s danger. I was kind of afraid of scary costumes and decorations. I worried my parents would drive around the neighborhood and recognize a cheerleader wearing white tennis shoes as their daughter. By high school Halloween parties frequently included booze or pot which weren’t my thing.

Fortunately, I was great at disguising my fear of Halloween from our children who adored the holiday. A granddaughter’s enthusiastic participation in anything connected to Halloween is awesome. I still decorate and usually keep a treat bowl filled, but I’m more comfortable spending Halloween in the basement reading a book.  

My New Goal: To Be Insanely Happy

When we are five, we laugh 113 times a day. By the age of 44, that number shrinks to 11 times a day.

Those statistics, which I came across in Voice of the Innovator, made me feel sad for my adult self who, now in her early 60s and pretty much isolated due to the pandemic, often laughs even less than that.

A few days after reading that statistic, I emailed a long-time friend I haven’t seen in years, ending my message with these words: “I hope you are doing well…healthy and happy.”

He responded immediately with one sentence: “Yes, insanely busy and insanely happy!”

That simple reply gave me pause.

Despite having read at least a dozen books on happiness and taken several happiness classes, including Berkeley’s the Science of Happiness and Yale’s The Science of Well-Being, the idea of being insanely happy had never even crossed my mind.

In fact, happiness, even at a basic level, often felt elusive. And the busier I was, the harder it was to be happy. Instead, I was stressed and anxious, and often heard myself saying, “I don’t have time to be happy now. I just need to get this done.”

Then my friend Laurie sent me a video clip of an orangutan’s reaction—one might say insanely happy reaction—to a simple magic trick in which a man makes a chestnut disappear. Watching the video made me laugh and provided me with a jolt of jolly. The first time I watched it, the 13^th time and even the 21^st time.

And while I’m still not laughing as often as a five-year-old, I’m definitely ha-ha-ing more often in pursuit of my new “insanely happy” goal.

Just thinking about the video makes me laugh. Perhaps it will do the same for you.

Artifacts

I’m at an odd intersection. The familiar objects from my childhood look like history to the rest of the world.

In the Before times when I casually shopped, I’d spot artifacts from my childhood at antique stores. Huh?!? Toys like Barbies and transistor radios, kitchen items like Pyrex bowl sets and milk glass spice jars, decorations like ashtrays and the glass swan currently on my buffet are . . . old enough to be collectible. Antiques. 

More startling was the realization that the purpose of those childhood objects will soon be obscure. Who fills decorative jars with spices anymore? When I was growing up, most homes had several ashtrays. Now they’re rare. 

I value antiques from my grandmothers like Depression glass decanters, silver trays, cut glass salt cellars, aprons, and dresser scarves (what I prefer to think of as ‘true’ antiques). Their quaintness and the memories they call up appeal to me, but I rarely use them because they are so high maintenance. If I want younger family members to appreciate those antiques, I’d have to explain their purpose and tell stories about people they’ve never met. 

Bringing the objects and the people who used them to life is hard, but here goes.

Last week I made a pecan pie from scratch using my grandmother’s old wooden rolling pin. Although I never made pie with her, she was the one who liked to bake, so I feel that connection when I use it. I floured an old embroidered linen towel and rolled out the crust on it, which brought to mind one of my grandmother Mimmie’s housekeeping tips.

She was from an era when women were expected to embroider towels, pillowcases, and dresser scarves (pretty cloths that covered up a lot of a dresser top to protect the wood—a lot of energy went into protecting furniture in her day). She or one of her sisters embroidered the towel which also had to be starched and ironed so it would look nice while hanging in the kitchen. 

As a girl, I wondered how I was supposed to use such a fancy towel. Mimmie showed me her secret: dry your hands on the part that doesn’t show—the part that hangs closest to the wall on the towel rack. That way the pretty ironed front would stay nice for a few days. No surprise that I use terrycloth towels in my kitchen!

Beyond the ‘antiques’ in my life is the realization that my lived experiences are also the stuff of history, but that’s a story for a different day! 

What’s the oldest thing in your house? Does anyone besides you know what to do with it or why it matters?