Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Chump Change

Perhaps I will post up one day on the chump subject but my post today is about change. Change is an arena that some play in with total and absolute control while others do not. I endured a great deal of change as I grew up. I lived at 18 different addresses up to the time I was 20 years of age. Those addresses stretched from the hills of southern Appalachia to the concrete jungle of Los Angeles to Jacksonville, Florida to Montgomery, Alabama to Tallahassee. I endured changes to new classes and teachers to new jobs and circumstances and so forth. These multiple experiences seem to catch my attention, lately change is an anxiety promoting and filthy beast.

I am speaking of the most minimal change. For example this website that you may be viewing this blog on. I have had the same website since 2003. The people who hosted it decided to sell this side of the business and I had to change. I went from Myers to LinkU. I always was able to fix my website any way that I wanted, in any fashion I wanted. It was easy. Now I have a whole new administrative quadrangle of approaches to accomplishing a particular function. It is decidedly difficult. I have become a pariah to the nice techie people at LinkU. They are nice and patient and always get me to the end point desired. However, I find myself lying in bed at night distraught by the fact that I could not figure it out for myself.

On another front, I very recently went from using a Blackberry to an I-Phone. I had used that Blackberry about five years. It got to where it would not hold a charge for the entire day and some keys stuck and so forth. My children told me that if I was going to change phones then I should get the I-Phone. " It has all sorts of apps that you are just going to LOVE !!!!! " gushed my son-in-law. The one with the IQ north of 150. For about two weeks I could not even answer the phone much less download an app to watch water buffalo drink from a river in Kenya. Needless to say I lost tons of sleep obsessing about how to remember the 6 or so passwords I had created to download apps from the app store via my I-Tunes account. I-Tunes account ????? Nothing like good old Looney Tunes, that I have loved since I was six.

Change is a daunting and terrifying concept. I believe the more advanced you become in age the more daunting it becomes. My wife and I follow the same routine day in and day out. Up at 6:00 to meet our little Bellamy. Bellamy is our little 20 month old grand daughter. The one with the IQ north of 160. Lunch at 12:30, dinner at 7:00, to bed at 10:00 and so forth. Any deviation from that schedule induces meltdown and insecurity.

As my sensibiliies have become more and more lulled by the sameness I have occassional lapses of wanting a change in routine. Ah, a wakeful moment. However enticing such a desire might be I fight it and remain in the endless rut that I am in.

I suppose that there is security in the sameness. I think about the people who are forced to evacuate their homes due to Isaac the hurricane ( same old big wind, different name). Their lives get changed whether they want it or not. I worked a Katrina, Red Cross, temporary shelter here once. As you looked into the faces of the refugees and engaged them I could see the unsettling anxiety I speak of with them.

Change is hard. Sometimes it is necessary for the common good but man it comes at a cost. Not a very successful political slogan " Hope and Sameness". Hmmmmmm, perhaps I could get behind such a candidate. Nah, that would be a complete juxtaposition to that which makes our kind the creatures in charge of this planet. Someone has to find out what is over that mountain. What makes that little blob of matter tick? Bellamy knows all about this from the many episodes of Sid the Science Kid that she makes me watch with her. Maybe there is hope for me. After all I have learned to use my I-Phone and I am making progress on my website. Evidence this totally non essential and boring post to my blog today.