From a distance, would someone please connect with my simple thoughts and spare me the agony of these technological gismos. I am drowning in total distraction!

I feel, I have lost valuable time due to this primitive devise we egotistically call The computer Goliath to save us Spare us the agony of traveling distances yet chattering our emotions And give us this artificial sense of security, and the feeling of being with people we have never met, yet feel unusually closer to them!

I have to admit, I am too human not to believe it, and if I did, I would also believe that no one had ever set foot on the Moon. Warm tears, mixed with nostalgic emotions fleeting my eyes, as I find myself behind a cold screen, my only companion, and facing a virtual world in a new dimension.
Could you believe, it is our new reality creeping up on us day after day? And do you understand, what frame of mind this puts us in as we explore new way of facing our future and destiny? The future is here, and with it time and space are constantly being redefined. E-mail sent at the Speed of light in contrast to a trip by "Satiam".
A far cry from a trip between Ouarzazate and Zagora some years back when it took fourteen hours to travel the one hundred mile distance, with no guarantees for a seat. Sheep, goats, chickens, even donkeys traveled for free and relished a seat on the luggage rack on top of the Bus. Who said our lives were not simple and passionate? Even as we reached our journeys exhausted and frail, we seldom made a trip without making eternal friends in the process.

A far cry from the good old mail and the rituals of writing a letter with love and passion, licking that stamp and carefully writing the recipient's address Anywhere Morocco. I remember the days when all one has to write on an envelop is the name of the recipient and the city where they lived in. And the letters passed their test of endurance as they made it to their destinations weeks or months later, all greasy and wrinkled yet the words they contained remained preserved and fresh forever.
The opening statement "Alhamdou lillahi wahdah"
The body: "La yakhoussouna siwa nadaro fi wajhikoum al3aziz" The inevitable conclusion: "Arsilou Darahim" and they waited in anticipation of an eternal reply.

E-mail, this edgy technology can only post written thoughts but ignores how emotions flow. Ironically, my primitive computer cannot distinguish between a thought and "bits of data". A thought about a soft kiss on a tender lip, and an E-mail relating the thought of what a tender lip feels like in encrypted lingo.

Is this where our future headed? Is there a right and wrong? The beauty of technology Until we stumble into a binary dysfunction, a hard drive that crashes, or simply stumbling over one of the dozen wires patching all the pieces together. Our emotional thoughts change into "&^%\$##$@(*&%$ J J L" and our agony, our technological nightmares had began!

Maybe it is the Modem, maybe it is the file type, maybe it is the Zip drive, oh, no! it is a virus, or possibly an outdated version of the software and my computer has refused to work with it any longer, and time running faster. As we try to figure out our awkwardness, we become emotionally distraught, sink more money in the latest toys to keep up with a virtual future and dare to be left behind, and dare to be technologically dysfunctional. Just yesterday, I was content with a bus trip which took fourteen hours on a 100 mile stretch. Today, I am losing patience with my 33 K Modem. And Mozilla the mail junky who keeps greeting me day in and day out! What a friendly guy! I am looking forward to meeting that virtual dude someday. The mouse I have come to love and hold on the palm of my hand for hours, for without it, my life on the net will be hell.

Welcome to the age of information! Faster in speed and colder in emotions. Today the only establishment which keeps 2400 Bps modems is the Smithsonian Museum to vouch for how fast technology had evolved, and how much our days have kept plugging along. Simply, we end up trying to sort technological gibberish before we can ever relate to our soft emotions.

So much for programming, for it does not know my mind nor does it know my feelings, and I am still contemplating to dust off my parchment, writing tablet, shake the old bottle of ink, and write the old nostalgic days with a plume and a burning desire.
I can easily identify with that medium and pull the plug on the mountains of data bits I have to unravel. All my recipients will still be the Stars.

As I yawned in despair, from a past which wrapped wrinkles around my eyes, and sawn sprinkles of gray on my hair, and the years I spent far away from home and my loved ones I turned to the future. I thought I will always go back and find things the same way I have left them, unchanged! Thinking not knowing that things change just as I keep buying new modems every three to four months. And my wrinkles continue to become obvious Still hoped someday when I return to Morocco, that every smile was frozen in time as I left it! Every life is spared from the grinding demands of high technology which brings people closer on the surface, as they grow farther physically and emotionally.

The last time I went back home, I searched for the same bus I took some 16 years ago, only to find that it no longer has a luggage rack to carry sheep, goats, roosters and large beasts. I discovered that the journey between Ouarzazate and Zagora had shrunk to less than three hours in an air-conditioned bus. A western Spaghetti movie along the journey, and cold Coca-Cola from a refrigerator on board for travelers to sip, enjoy, and quench their thirst.

I was overcome with a terrible feeling of loneliness as I went back to meet past days of happiness. I had no choice but to silently watch Rocky 4, and Terminator 3 for the first time during my journey between Ouarzazate and Zagora.

People have picked up a fast pace! Talking on cellular phones, and checking their pagers for messages, just as I had become accustomed to checking my E-mail every morning, and every night.

I realized, soon, I will no longer have to take the bus, and my flight by airplane between Ouarzazate and Zagora will only take 10 minutes. The new comers are being entertained by this amazing world of high tech, as they seem to have forgotten the past with its beauty and its simplicity. Someday, I will write the story of how much technology has changed our lives with a golden pen. I will save it for my children and grand children, so when they visit home, they will be able to catch a glimpse of it, and reflect up on what my world was like then, and what it has become in such a short time.

Said Leghlid

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