My Office is My Life Line

I love looking at other peoples studios. This is mine. A mess. Muck boots, Bee frames. Parrot. Couch to watch a movie.

Your computer, cell phone, ipad is your life line. 

Ever wonder about where you sit day in and day out? The importance it has in your daily life? The positive and negative effects of it? If anything, like me you’re in office 12-15 hours a day, sometimes. Its the most used room in this house. It really should be the largest room. Every hour of every day, I walk thru it if I’m not in it - to grab something, eat something. Look up stuff on the internet....

Everything flows thru here. Even the goats at milking time. I raise baby goats in here. Wayward kittens.... I feed the dogs in here. The parrot has now taken up residence. It’s where I talk to my customers all day, schedule my day, pay bills, manage the herd, design work, and so on.... In the morning its the first room I walk in, turn on the computer, and see what emails have come in during the night. It’s literally the lifeblood of this homestead.

It begs the questions of how simple is it?  I swore a life of simplicity.... Goats milk, making cheese, soaps. etc. But this is one technology, I just can’t do without. 

Before computers, internet, Facebook, would I even have a customer base? How would I have found them. How would you have found me? Think on that. How? Word of mouth can only go so far. It has taken us to places we’d never dream of. And for that in this stage of life - grateful for it.

The internet has made life so much easier in so many ways, yet in that same thought, complicated it beyond control. You chat with people you wouldn’t in person. You interact with people normally never in your circle of consciousness. Without it though, I would never get to see how those in Peru or Zimbabwe milk goats, how they make cheese. Learn about their cultures and become better for it. It has opened things up for me and everyone, beyond any measure.  

The internet has become so very important to everyone, everyday, that I wonder why are some still so ignorant on so many levels. Shouldn’t everyone become smarter? Where else can you ask a question, and in milliseconds have answers? Where research is at your fingertips. I remember the hours and days in a library to research. Does this generation and future ones,  even know what the word Microfiche means?

I fear for the youth that I stumble across on this internet, and wonder what the future for them will be when the internet gives them that access to think they know it all. But not have to experience it. Those of us that are older understand the difference. Life isn’t the internet. But to them it is. Nor what you experience on it makes it real. But what about the children on there that think life is your next selfie. That what you read takes the place of the experience you lack? 

I have an alarm clock now sitting on my phone that rings at certain parts of the day. To snap me out of office mode,  to go do something outside. If not for that, I would literally get so involved in a project, reading, researching, chatting, 10 hours can pass and not realize it. I can get so caught up on this (ipad, phone, computer)  that sometimes I think it's an extension of me. It's not.  The difference lies though in knowing this. Having 30 or so years of life learning and experience without it helps me appreciate it.  But the next generations? 

I walk the goats thru here to milk them. The parrot thinks its funny.