괜찮아요

In just 4 days, I’ve been notified of 3 passings… [though one of which is my god-bro's cat] and as I was on my way home just now, I came to think about this issue: It must have been pretty hard for people in the past, without all the technology, to actually verbalize a passing to their families and friends.

Isn’t it true? When someone passed away, you are already submerged in a pool of loss and sorrow, but you still have to suppress that and inform others about it. I’m not sure about how people feel in general, but for myself, I know that I would probably teared before I even finish informing. It can be so hard at times. Now that with SMSes and E-mails, we can notify our families and friends about a passing much easily and faster. Well, it can be good in the sense that you can now spread the information faster (imagine having to call up each family member and friend to inform, and to receive condolences over the phone, it’ll probably take more than a day to finish all the callings; and don’t forget, you still need make arrangements for the wake and funeral, on top of posting on the newspapers and to report to the police station).

Of course, there are still many of us who still prefer the traditional way, which is fine too. This is just probably one of the ways which the later generations, like ours, would be using.

Well, since we are at it, might as well talk about technology further. Whenever I’m away from Singapore, I would be more than happy to not check my mails and not bring my handphone along, whenever possible (which, unfortunately, don’t really happen as I’d wished). Technology makes us so accessible that it’s starting to tie us down. This can be quite horrendous at times. For a businessman who used to travel a lot by air, they can use that few hours of air travel to relax and take a nap; these days, they are checking their mails, doing up business documents on their laptops, etc. So by the time they got off the plane, on top of coping with jetlags, they are coupled with the tiredness from endless work. We seem to be unable to escape from this peril of binding ourselves like slaves.

I’ve just came back from my exchange program to Korea. One thing that I’m quite certain of is that I do not really feel ‘too detached’ from home and the people here. With MSN, emails, Skype, etc available [webcams too!], I do not even have to get myself a phonecard to make international calls! We can chat, speak and see each other just like when we are in the same country. Beauty of technology? I beg to differ. In a way, though it helps you to connect with people you might be missing, it’s also making you not missing them enough. Well personally, I would have love not to be tracked down that easily if given a choice. If I were to have a total “away” experience, it might have been good in a way to be “fully detached”. Okay fine, I know I can be such a heartless kid. :p [Well, I might have missed home more if I'd none of those easily accessible means. I'd have had to call home regularly (I only called home once in 4 months, and probably chatted over the headsets for less than 5 times; other times, I just used MSN typing).]

And ya, I can such an oldie at times. I would probably appreciate sending handwritten letters by snail-mail. Of course, having said that, it had been great that we can still connect and contact each other so easily. And family and friends can keep track of what I’d been up to from my blog and emails, which is great of course. There are always two sides to a coin.

^_^g