reflections on a winter's day

sunrise:  7:05

In case you can't read the icy thermometer, it's about 15 degrees this morning, and so breathtakingly lovely that I was mesmerized. Had to drag myself inside to get my daughter to school and myself to exercise class.

There are a lot of things in my mind today.  First, here's a link to a New York Times article my oldest daughter sent me as a follow up to my post on MLK Jr.'s birthday. Very thought provoking stuff.

Reports of a powerful aftershock in Haiti were on the front page today.  The horrors and agonies of that small island are...impossible to fully conceive.  We can send money and goods and prayers; we can ache for them.  Then what?  Try to overlook the small things in our own lives, perhaps, and make the world a better place every day, in any tiny way that we can.

In lighter news, I read about the importance of standing up and moving around as often as we can.  Easier said than done for a lot of occupations, but not impossible.  I particularly liked this remark:  "Don't just send your colleague an email.  Walk over and talk to him.  Standing up."

That brings me to another sequence of thoughts that have been circulating in my mind.  History will have to sort out all of the profound changes that electronic communications are having on the world.  I am a newbie blogger, and a big fan of the forum for such a free and rapid exchange of ideas.

I am particularly happy about the connections I have been able to sustain with friends and cousins whom I rarely get to see.  One in particular, a multi-year blogger and my blog mentor, had this to say about blogs:

"...although I go through stale periods from time to time I keep it going for a bunch of reasons.  First, once you have readers you really do not want to lose them.  They become part of your connection to the world, a whole base of partial one-dimensional friends that think they know you at some level (and they do).  I have had beers with a fair number of them over the years, and in a few cases made actual friends..."

he goes on:

"I was never particularly creative -- colorblind, tone deaf, and lacking in motor skills, the arts were not for me.  But then blogging software came along - it is like an instrument invented for me.  It unleashed a heretofore undetected creativity...."

How could anyone argue against that kind of a testimonial?  On the other hand, we are all sitting down too much, and forgetting to connect with real people (she writes at her computer, alone).

So many things, taken too far, lead to ill health and negative repercussions.  As in so much of life - it's a question of balance.  Everything in moderation, including moderation, my father likes to quote from Lost Horizon. 

Make connections by computer, but don't forget real, physical, visual human contact.

And by the way -- don't forget physical, visual contact with that world outside as well, on our feet, standing up, in the snow.