Family

Some interesting thoughts on family by Patricia Volk....

Family is what we first know of the world. Family is the world, your very own living microcosm of humanity, with its heros and victims and martyrs and failures, beauties and gamblers, hawks and lovers, cowards and fakes, dreamers and steamrollers, and the people who quietly get the job done. Every behavior in the world is there to watch at the dinner table. You study them. You learn. You see how they change and how they stay the same. But if you think you can really know them, you're missing the point. The point isn't how well you know somebody.

The point is this: In a family you don't come from nowhere. You enter the world already a part of something. The myths and behaviors are all there to model yourself on or against. It's through family you learn there are no limits on ideas. Knowing so much about them, how open-hearted can you bear to be? You were born with the chance to love them. You might as well. They're yours.

The day my iPhone fell out of favor

I have always favored my iPhone. It was far and away my favorite device (not that I have many to compare it to), mostly due to the funcionality it brought me. Not to mention its design - iPhones just look great. But it is also far and away my most expensive gadget: the privilege of having the internet anywhere I want is costing me $30/month. This was a cost I gladly paid, as I travelled around quite a bit. For me, it was completely worth it.

That all took a turn the day I started my job here at Urban. All of a sudden, my life had a lot more routine, and I realized I wasn't travelling around quite as much. And all of a sudden, paying that extra $30/month seemed like an outrageous price for a functionality I would rarely use. It didn't help knowing that internet to my apartment could be had for $10 less (and 8x faster).

Now whenever I see my phone laying there, I see a device that is charging me ridiculous amounts for an ability I will hardly be using anymore.