The pastor of the church I’m currently dating came up with this quite elegant construction, in the context of trying to re-imagine church for the upcoming generation (do they have a name yet?). Basically, it describes the divide between those of us who adopted technology later in life, and those for whom it’s been a natural part of their entire lives.
Immigrants can adopt the customs of their new country, lose their accents, and try to pass as native. But there is also, always, some real-time processing and translating going on in their heads. That is to say, no matter how fluent I get in cell phone or Internet (which is not all that fluent), it will never come as naturally for me as it does for my kids.
Sometimes I like to scare/amaze/bore them with stories of how technology has changed since I was a kid. But I think it really must be like tales of the old country. They can’t imagine life without video recording, cell phones, or computer games; I can’t imagine navigating digital devices with their ease and grace. I’m happy enough to be in this new country, the land of opportunity, but the newness and the bustle and the constant change do unsettle me from time to time. Luckily, I’ve got my kids to translate for me.
That is a good analogy. And like the immigrants, some of them can pass and can maybe even pass for a native. But why would you want to do that?
gordon123
October 31st, 2007
Also, the currently dating thing was funny.
gordon123
October 31st, 2007