Techno Peeps 1, Luddites 0

I am a self-proclaimed luddite, as I have often admitted.  Technology lumbers on ever farther towards obliterating a way of life that I think is important to have, or at least to remember.  All of the real life skills that we used to have are being overrun, mowed down like tall green cornstalks by a combine, it seems.  I like knowing how to load film and sew buttons and split wood and sand the grains of wood to a clean finish and smell the dust on callouses and know that I did something, that it wasn't automated, to look at a wooden frame on the wall for years, no, decades, and remember how splintered fingers felt after bark and rough and scruff was cleared away and I found beauty, that I didn't leave it up to a robot.  Robot's just don't get what's so good about a hard day's work, and they'll never understand what's so good about the whimsical flow of Cherry grain and the smell of Walnut wood shavings, but enough about wood.   So, I just don't like modern conveniences.  No T.V., no microwave, no dishwasher, just the basics.  Yeah, crazy, I know you're thinking it, but hey, that's what I believe, and why believe something if you're not going to try and live it.

But, this evening, while sitting at Charbucks, (Starbucks), I sat across from a lady reading a worthless romance novel who screeched, breathed deeply all of a sudden, and sat up.  Her little pink shorts were way too short for a lady of her years, but hey, good for her I guess, but she sat there, and looked awefully put out.  I looked over "The Robin Williams thing?"  Her face crumpled and she nodded the nod of a toddler who just skinned their knee and you ask if they want a band-aid.  "You saw?!  What a horrible thing.  I wonder what must have happened."
 I wasn't very soft with the news.
 "Looks like he strangled himself with something.  Sherriff said asphyxiation."

 Her emotive outburst wasn't affected in the least though.  "Oh, what talent to be lost.  And look, his wife is heartbroken.  Oh my, so sad, I didn't know he was depressed.  Oh my."

Well, I was a little cynical at first at such remorse for the loss of just a figure, someone she had never met, a piece of art, for all we know, like a destroyed symphony.

But then, I realized that the little stupid radio-transmitting tangle of fine earths in her hand was bridging hearts and letting the entire world grieve with a family that had been the origin of great laughter and incredible art through the years.  As she grieved the loss of Robin Williams, that old lady with skimpy pink shorts across from me was grieving the loss of afternoon matinees with her children watching Mrs. Doubtfire, or her tears as she watched Dead Poets Society, Good Morning Vietnam, or Mork and Mindy (ugh) or enjoyed any of the other pieces of art that he brought us.  That little stupid smart phone was what brought the world together, and for that reason, I have given technology a win for the day.