New Puppy, New Toys

It always amuses me to see how new technology plays into our lives, and the things that we end up focusing on using different tools. With a new puppy in the house, I’ve had less time for my more serious contemplative thinking and blogging, and have turned to the lightweight tools of Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook which I can enjoy and play with in a few moments of time rather than long uninterrupted blocks of thought time. And I use Google Reader to keep up with all the hundreds of blogs I read.

You would think I might do similar things with all these tools, but no, they end up being very different sorts of creatures. On Tumblr, I’m enjoying a mix of gorgeous photography, humorous posts, and short inspirational quotes and writings. On Twitter, I’ve ended up following neighborhood restaurants that feature organic and local foods, and my favorite craft brewers, as well as friends around the world, news personalities abd news aggregators, and also some inspirational quotes and writings. On Facebook it’s a mix of high school and political friends and blog friends. My blog posts feed into my Tumblr account, my Tumblr feeds my Twitter account, and it all flows into Facebook eventually. So I guess I maintain some sense of connection. My Google Reader shared posts are available from a tab on my blog or in the Google Reader share that my friends read.

And all of this fits into the theme I developed for this year of being open to change, open to new things, and opening up myself to new media, new experiences, new circumstances. My deepest communications this year have been reconnections with old friends, bringing these long term relationships into new arrangements. I’ll be spending a week in Hawaii soon with one of my oldest and dearest girlfriends from high school and our husbands, But the new is here as well — with the new puppy, new toys, new ways of talking with old friends. We’re redoing our front yard, making it more drought-tolerant, upgrading the landscaping with new walls and steps, more structure but using less of more precious resources like water, and restoring native plants to the space.

Restructuring and repurposing our own lives has become ever more important in a world of rapidly changing communication and technology. Finding the balance of the new and making room for it with the old seems to be the major focus of my life right now.