WALKING MY WAYS

WALKING MY WAYS. On my walking sticks and iPad I have my address and phone number. But, on my hearing aids, there is nothing. So if I lose them, I am out of luck. But recently, my audiologist had an answer. “You know,” she said, “there is an app.” Which I didn’t know. Nor how to use it. But thanks to a good friend, and her smart phone, I now can lose my hearing aids, call my friend, and find my hearing aids. As my friend has paired my hearing aids to the new app on her phone. And can tell me EXACTLY where my hearing aids are. Any time.

There is so much technology out there, most of which I don’t understand, that it really is amazing. As example, another friend recently landed in the hospital, with no one the wiser. Until her daughter discovered her mom’s location, by merely going to the daughter’s phone and tracking her mother’s. As she somehow had established this ability, on her own phone. Because she is a smart technophile.

Artificial Intelligence can also be intriguing. For instance, I live in an old redwood house, that supposedly was moved from downtown Carmel. Where it had been a restaurant. But I can’t prove it. And so I asked AI for proof. I asked whether ELLA’S SOUTHERN KITCHEN was ever moved to its present location. And much to my delight, it answered a resounding “Yes.” Confirmation I had been looking for. But on closer observation, I discovered that AI got its answer from me. Namely, from a historical blurb that I had written two years before. And I realized that it was “ME, MYSELF AND I.” who gave all this information to AI in the first place. Not the other way around.

So for me, modern technology is similar to dense fog. Sometimes right and sometimes wrong. Sometimes true and sometimes false. But always collaborating with Luck. Hope. And Knowledge. Finis.