Cool Hand Luke, and Current Reality

Cool Hand Luke is a terrific classic movie. If you haven't seen it (and Spartacus, which reminds me of the Pepsi commercial which was a hoot) you should. There is a classic quote in the movie.

"What we have here is a failure to communicate."

That sums up a lot of modern life.

We have all of these communication devices. And we use them endlessly. But as in the tower of Babel everybody's talking and nobody's listening so it's just so much noise. In the written word you can put down the most detailed, step-by-step instructions, but they're basically useless (except as defense against the inevitable lawsuits) because NOBODY READS THEM.

We go blazing through our lives at 90+ mph and barely slow down enough to breathe let alone actually pay attention to what is really going on in other people's lives. And then we wonder why we're lonely. Because honestly, if you don't pay attention to others, they don't pay attention to you. It really is reciprocal.

A friend of mine reminded me of how back when he was in high school it was assumed that we'd be moving to a 3 or 4 day workweek within the decade and have all this free time. So we needed to have hobbies for all of our leisure time. Um, wow. Is that what you're seeing 30 years or so later? I'm not. Even though I've moved to part-time on the day job (with the subsequent pay cut -- ouch), I've got the whole second major career as a writer thing going, so that I actually work 6 days a week.

And life keeps speeding up.

When I first started in law offices people would bring something in and expect it back in about 3 weeks.

Then came the fax machine. Suddenly people expected things back in 3 days.

Then came e-mail. Now people expect it back in 3 hours MAX. They expect you to acknowledge receipt of it in 3 minutes or less.

BUT THEY STILL EXPECT IT TO BE PERFECT.

Now when you consider the average law firm has several hundred (or more) clients ALL of whom are expecting this, tis just a bit stressful. And not at all what was advertised back in high school. Then again, we never did get those rocket packs either. Or that cool hoverboard from Back to the Future. Which, by the way, I SERIOUSLY wanted.

But now my day job calls. So I am off to it.