A New Day

So dawns a new day. It’s funny how you can work and work for things, not sure if you will achieve them but willing to risk the time and effort to at least make a gallant effort and give it your all. I’m not talking little tasks – I am speaking of those gigantic leaps of faith we take when the course of our lives completely takes a change of path. We have all had these times, it’s when you decide to go back to school, become engaged, decide to have a baby, or go for an entirely new career – those kinds of big changes.

Then there comes a day (or night) and something happens and you realize that you are there – you have done what you set out to do/achieve. You graduate, you get married, have a child, or get your foot in the door to that new career. After all the work, achieving the goal can be as staggering as setting it. There is that moment of “Oh my God, what have I done, can I REALLY do this?” At the same time you want to jump up and shout and kick your heals and shout, “I DID IT!”

Once you have calmed down a little, you realize that you are like the mountain climber, you’ve reached the first plateau and looking out at the expanse you know that even more is out there. It’s an important time. It’s the time when you will need to look at your accomplishments and go from there – setting new goals and heading into new directions. In many ways, you realize, your work has just begun.

The Internet, the “virtual” world has totally altered our landscape. It is our generations’ big plateau I think. Perhaps those who developed the internet stood on their mountain tops, after all their incredible work, and were able to gaze into the future and see where we are now. I think it is more likely that they too stand in awe – as would Thomas Edison if he could be here now.

For me the most exciting thing about the internet and modern technology is that it gives us so many new ways to communicate, not just with family and friends and the people we see every day, not just in our own communities, or state or nation but with the entire world. I think it has opened floodgates. We are developing real relationships with people we may ever only know “virtually” – we can educate ourselves virtually, we can run businesses on a global level virtually, we can develop deep and personal bonds virtually.

When I look back at what our ancestors accomplished to bring us to this point, sitting here on the mountaintop, and gazing into the future – I feel like a pioneer in a rich new world. What we do with this world is up to us – as individuals, as a community. For I believe the internet/modern technology gives us a whole new level of “community”. Right now this community reminds me a little like the days of the “wild west”
 There are few rules
 There is very little law enforcement
 There is gold and riches to be had, and those willing to go after it for any price
 Some have come to find a new life and are filled with hope, willing to work hard and excited to develop this new land and build a community
 We are in uncharted territory
 We can do tremendous good
 If we are not mindful we can also do tremendous damage
 We are starting fresh and yet we can use all the knowledge, all the work, the mistakes, the successes of our past to help us.
 There are people who want to regulate this new world, to tax it, to own it and yet it has grown to be such a vast realm that no-one is quite sure how (or if they can) “take charge”.
 The internet now also has millions of little branches – little communities unto themselves. Each of these little communities is setting their own standards (for instance banning graphic sex or violence or swearing, etc).

As the sun rises on this new day I feel tremendously grateful to all of the people who have worked so hard to bring us to this point and to those who are working just as hard to take us forward from here.