Digital Dynamics, People and Community, Simple Living

Enjoying the Moment

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While in Canada, I attended a ceilidh. A ceilidh (pronounced KAY-lee) is a traditional Scottish and Irish social gathering that features live folk music and dance. This one was more accurately a concert. About a hundred people sat in a semicircle around the performers.

Image courtesy of Pixabay

Unlike most concerts, this didn’t have the usual prohibition of recordings and photographs. From the back, I noticed how many hands held smartphones high at any given moment. It reminded me of school days, when students wanted to be called on. When you think about it, smartphones do beg for attention.

Earlier in the day, I’d seen an informal review of a different ceilidh. The reviewer was disappointed that the venue didn’t offer a place to dance. Her point was well taken. She knows a ceilidh is a gathering in a room full of music, laughter, and people of all ages dancing, whooping, and clapping.

So maybe I didn’t attend a ceilidh. Whatever it was, a number of attendees spent a lot of time and energy recording short segments of it, fiddling (note the intentional use of that word) with their phones, watching instant replays, and showing the results to their neighbor.

I didn’t count, but several of these people left at intermission. I wanted to chase after them and ask a few questions. The big one was, “Did you fully enjoy the ‘moment,’ or was it more fun recording it?” I’m not judging. I’m curious.

And I’ll confess. I wasn’t fully enjoying the music while I was entertaining these thoughts. I even regret not getting a photo or two of those raised smartphones to illustrate this article. I enjoyed the moment; just not as intended. If I may use another “e word,” I was engaged in something other than the music.

Day two included another event that more closely qualified as a ceilidh. Photos and recording were prohibited. There were other differences, but I chose to focus on that one. It freed people to ignore their smartphones and participate in the performance.

There was an abundance of “dancing, whooping, and clapping.” The dancing was limited to the performers because of space constraints, but the audience whooped and clapped a lot. Toe tapping and knee slapping were hard to observe in the darkened theatre. But it felt like the audience enjoyed the moment mentally, emotionally, and physically. I know I did.

Looking back on both events, I find myself wondering if I was truly “enjoying the moment” and “getting what I came for.” It’s ultimately my responsibility to make sure I do.

Phones held high, or hands busy clapping. Both are a way of being there. It’s worth knowing which one you came for.

Amish Life, Causes and Friends, People and Community

Revisiting and Rewriting a Rant

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This is not copyrighted; feel free to adapt and use it.

When I wrote Tolerating Intolerance, I was more than annoyed and a little frustrated. A rant is a passionate, loud, and often lengthy outburst of anger or strong opinion. I consider myself a passionate person, but “rants” conflict with my self-image. I might admit to controlled rants.

The original rant centered around two Facebook users who are using Meta AI glasses to secretly record their encounters with Amish people (including minors) and then post the videos on social media. The fact that the people are Amish could be incidental, except that:

  • Many Amish communities and individuals frown on photographs.
  • Amish people tend to be non-confrontational.

That combination makes them easy to exploit. So a few of us who support and admire the Amish formed a self-appointed group of advocates and have tried to raise awareness of the issue. For starters, even the Amish (who shun technology) are probably unaware that the glasses exist and are being used. There is also a strong case that these recordings are being made illegally, particularly in Pennsylvania, a state that follows an all-party (or two-party) consent rule, meaning it is illegal to record any telephone, electronic, or private in-person conversation without the consent of all parties involved.

From all appearances, initial efforts to interest the Lancaster District Attorney and the media have had limited success. A reporter from Lancaster Online did tackle the subject in a fairly detailed article. The DA did a legal two-step by complicating the issue and claiming the law hasn’t kept up with technology.

The reporter also interviewed Laura Flynn, the woman behind the glasses. In what must be the ultimate irony, she refused to allow the interview to be recorded.

Why do we tolerate someone else’s casual disregard for others? It’s not just a legal issue. Maybe we’re too quick, all of us, to rationalize and justify.

For my part, while in the Lancaster area, I’ve made sure my Amish friends know what she’s doing. One friend works at a location that’s already been recorded and featured. Another Amish friend with a home-based business feels vulnerable and wondered what she should do. We discussed some options, and as a partial strategy, I designed and printed some signage and cards for her.

Ultimately, it’s too easy to feel vulnerable in a society that often is uncaring and unkind. It’s not just a legal issue.

Aretha Franklin spelled it out for us in song. For those unfamiliar, it repeats the theme, “All I’m askin’ is for a little respect…” And if you’re willing to offer “R-E-S-P-E-C-T find out what it means to me.”

Simple, really.

A sign could help. I realize not many Amish will see this post, but if you think a sign like this at your farm stand, business, or home might help, I’ll make one for you.

“Be your own artist, and always be confident in what you’re doing. If you’re not going to be confident, you might as well not be doing it.”

Aretha Franklin

Personal Growth, Simple Living

Quick Quip #26-07

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When I taught the real estate licensing course, I often joked that I could make students pick up their pencils. All I had to do was say, “This sounds like a good test question.”

It was fun and arguably effective, but it wasn’t great teaching. The best teaching is autodidactic. (If you look that word up, you’ve been autodidactic.)

Of course, one student chastised me: “You said it would be a good test question, but it wasn’t on the test.” I replied, “Gee, I’m sorry you learned it.”

Do you see what’s wrong with this picture?

Quick Quips are a developing feature of the Walter Writes Blog, which explores simplicity in a complicated world.

People and Community

Simple Memorials

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Memorials may be simple; memories may not. Both are important.

Yesterday was the 25th anniversary of 9-11. One of the many thoughts that crossed my mind was the reality that most people under the age of 25 were not alive and will not have a firsthand memory of that day.

We can debate whether that’s good or bad. The best answer is, “Both.”

Those under 25 depend on the memorials and monuments we who were alive have created.

I did not know until yesterday about the memorials at Boston’s Logan Airport. One of the more subtle ones is the US flags that fly above Gates B32 and C19. These are the gates that the two aircraft departed from that fateful morning.

According to a recent Boston Globe article, when Logan’s official memorial was dedicated in 2008, then-Massport Chairman John Quelch shed further light on the flags’ origins.

“Both memorials appeared spontaneously, raised by airport and airline employees without fanfare or ceremony,” he said. “These two memorials are one and the same. And there is no grander memorial. That memorial is the flag of the United States of America.”

If there’s ever a second edition of my book, Memorials, Monuments, and Memories, there might well be an added chapter. The grandest memorials are the simplest.

You don’t have to be under 25 to appreciate some facts and memories. Here are a few to get you started.

  • The Tunnel to Towers Foundation is by itself a memorial that proves “We will never forget.
  • The World Will Never Forget 9/11 is exactly what it sounds like, an entire blog dedicated to keeping the memory of that day alive, from the Memorial Plaza to the stories behind it.
  • Ephemeral New York has spent years documenting the small, personal memorials tucked into corners of the city, the ones you’d walk past without noticing unless someone pointed them out.
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Exploring simplicity in a complicated world