Sitting around a table the talk turned, as it often does, to technology, and then to the invention of cars and the way it must have felt the moment that it became possible to move so quickly. I made a joke about how I probably would have been something of a Luddite even then--what are you doing with all that time you're saving going so fast, what's wrong with good old horses--but it really wasn't a joke. I genuinely don't think that newer is always better or that faster is more fun than slower. What's wrong with taking the long cut or talking to the people in front of me instead of fiddling with a tiny computer in my pocket? I wish all this technology would get off my lawn. Maybe progress doesn't always mean something new and extra shiny.
But I guess some of us have to be old fashioned, if only to stay a fixed point that everyone else is moving away from. I already have in this bag all of these quaint ideas about love and friendship and manners, so maybe I'll stop feeling guilty about preferring my own slower, quieter ways. Some of us just aren't made to move so fast.
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