Take time to remember how much things have changed.

Flavour Of The Month, You Speak | November 01 2013

This remembering issue of The Stew would not be complete for November if we didn’t stop and take a moment to remember all the lives that were changed forever by war. We remember those who sacrificed everything, the ones who dreamed of freedom and world peace for all. We do not have world peace yet but remembering what was fought for and what was given up may help us remember to try harder and be better individuals for the greater good. If it were not for a national holiday once a year called Remembrance Day most of us would not stop to think specifically about remembering. As important as this holiday is, it is also a chance to think about how important remembering is. ‘Remember when’ is often heard around the dinner table
when you have those big family get-togethers and grandpa is reminiscing about the good-old days
when things were simpler and less complicated.
These were the times when watching TV was not preceded by a huge complicated instructional lesson on how the universal remote works and how not to screw up the PVR or whatever other programming that is set.
Times when dinner was about face to face conversations, and that didn’t mean Facetime on the latest
iPhone, but rather in person. It was a time when a conversation was not interrupted by the constant glancing into your lap, and small smile shared between you and who ever just posted the latest funny on facebook. And yes as sneaky as you think you are there is nothing in your lap that is that interesting or funny that much of the time. Most of us don’t have to think that far back to remember what it was like before social media took over the planet. Remember when we picked up the phone and talked to our friends or went out for coffee? Now there is no point in human contact as the most intimate details of everyone’s lives are just a click away on Facebook or Twitter.

Technology is great and most of the time makes life easier but there has to be a balance between healthy human function and memory and leaving it to ‘smart’ gadgets.

Remember when life was only complicated by one phone line and email that didn’t follow you everywhere you went on your phone. Information is now a constant stream at our finger tips and good or bad it is most defiantly here to stay. No more digging out the old encyclopedia to verify facts or do your home work, the University of YouTube is always open. In 10 years or so we will be reminiscing about the old days where technology was so slow and limited, as I am sure that there is no stopping where it is going to
go in the future. So have we really grown and advanced as humans or is technology over taking us? Are we smarter or have we gotten lazy and begun to rely too much on what can be googled or corrected in spell check? In the future will we be saying ‘remember when’ or will we have an app that does that for us?
Technology is great and most of the time makes life easier but there has to be a balance between healthy human function and memory and leaving it to ‘smart’ gadgets.
Memories of childhood and growing up are a huge part of adult life and help inform how we feel about things and the choices that we make. What is important to remember is that remembering the good with the bad gives us a chance to reflect and grow from these life learning opportunities. There are times when we
choose to remember something because of how it made us feel. What we choose to focus on will help form our memories for the future today. Memory is a fascinating thing and in honour of those who can’t remember or who are no longer with us we want to dedicate The Remembering Issue of The Stew to all of you. We want to challenge all of our readers to take a moment and remember something important in your life and
acknowledge it or remember something from your past and commemorate it. Take every opportunity you get
to make a new memory because you never know when it will be important or when you will lose it and it will be gone.