Connected.

As I was sitting here on the sofa a few minutes ago, hoping for a few minutes to myself, I had in my lap, my laptop computer with it's wireless internet connection, the baby monitor with its invisible portal to the toddler's room (where he has NOT been asleep for the last hour), the cordless phone, and the remote control. Pretty amazing, this technology is. It works, but you can't see it. It's invisible. I wonder if you can see it would you see rays shooting in all directions. Do they go around our bodies or through them? That can't be good for them to go through them. Hmmm. I don't really understand how radio waves, etc. work except in the most basic sense. My only exposure to physics was an Introductory Physical Science class in 9th grade and a boyfriend in college who'd explain the physics of things around us. Anyway, the fact that I don't know how this stuff works reminds me of something I was reading yesterday. It was talking about how we live in this illusion of independence from others. We think we're independent and self-reliant. We live in a time where we can make use of lots of amazing technology and not have a clue how it works or where things come from. The example used in the book I was reading talks about getting one's food at a grocery store. Think how many people it took to get a particular food item to our table. Say we're talking about tortilla chips, for example. There are the people who grow the corn, the people who pick the corn, the people who make the pesticides or fertilizers for the corn stalks, the people who sell the fertilizers and pesticides, the people who transport the corn to the factory, all the people who are responsible for assembling the other ingredients that go into making tortilla chips, the people who mine salt, for example. Then, there's the processing of the salt, and the transporting of the salt, etc. etc. At the tortilla chips factory, there are the people who mix the ingredients together, the people who run the ovens to bake the chips. Oh, and don't forget all the people it takes to feed all the people who do these things. And the people who clean the tortilla chip plant and the people who run the cafeteria in the tortilla chip plant and the people who clean the restrooms in the tortilla chip plant. And then the people who make the toilets or the ovens or other fixtures in the tortilla chip plant. And then the people who make the bags that the chips go into. The people make the ink that goes on the bags. The ad people who designed the look of the bags. Then, the packing of the bags of chips to transport to stores. Then the stocking of the chips. The cashier who checks out your groceries. The people who make the cash registers. The store manager who manages the grocery store staff. And on and on. You get my point. (You probably got it a while ago. Heh.) Anyway, my point is that despite how independent we think we are, our lives are totally interconnected with those around us. It's so easy not to give one single thought about the people around us who keep society humming along. Our trash gets picked up. Our grocery stores get stocked. The bathrooms at our offices get cleaned. Then, there's the stuff like all our technology which I can hardly even begin to understand what went into making it. All I know is that it works and I like it that way. Wireless or not, though, we are all connected.

That's what JoJo learned today!