It's about time

Reading my post about the bats to a dear cousin of mine, she said "who has time to read that rubbish?". Well maybe it wasn't the best post to choose. Actually I can imagine my Dad would have said something like that too. She then said she couldn't bear all these emails to- ing and fro-ing and how no- one has any time. Well we do all have the same number of hours in each day as Einstein had, say, or Leonardo da Vinci. It's the way we choose to use our time that matters. Modern technology should have made life easier and given us lots more time. Modern communications are practically immediate. E-mails and texts swoosh off at the touch of a button and replies can ping back instantly. We can have whole conversations without ever speaking to each other. My cousin is from a generation reared on letters and thank you notes, carefully hand-written, posted and displayed on a shelf. The world has changed incredibly fast in the last 15 years in that respect, but have we still got time for each other?

Here is a poem lamenting the decline in hand-written letters and diaries that started to dwindle with the invention of the telephone.

In years to come

There'll be no letters

Yellowed at the edge,

To save for generations

Yet unborn.

There'll be no diaries

Left for them to see

How great- grandfather spent his day,

Or worked his way

On freighter ships

Across the seas.

No love notes

Hidden in a secret drawer,

Tied with faded ribbon

To read again once more.

The telephone is close at hand

And we no longer understand 

The pen,

How deep the loss 

Of all those yesterdays

With joy and sorrow

If they are all forgotten

By tomorrow

Antonia B. Laird