Dragon Dictation

OK…Yea…I have one of those iPhones.  For most purposes, it has replaced my computer.  I recently went over 4 days without firing up my laptop or my home computer to get on-line and check out the pulse of facebook, twitter, email, wordpress, weather, Fantasy Football, my schedule, etc.  I did all this from my iPhone with just a few touches and pushes on the screen.  I am now one of those people who I used to make fun of. 

One of the latest applications that I thought was too cool, is called Dragon Dictation.  This is a voice recognition application that allows you to speak and then transfer that text to email, text message, facebook status updates, tweets,…just about anything that you usually type, can use Dragon Dictation to transfer your voice into text.  I’m shocked at how well it works.

So, I was driving to a meeting last night and saw something that was funny.  I decided to use this newfound technology while I was driving.  I talked into the mic; it magically knew what I was saying.  I transferred it to a text message and forwarded it to a  friend that would get the humor of what I just saw.  This went on for about 5 minutes, until I arrived safely at the meeting.  I sent him 7 messages in this fashion.  Much safer than texting whilst driving I justified, which I am guilty of doing on occasion.  On top of being safer, I thought the whole thing was pretty cool.

Until I reflected on it today….

Technology has evolved,….let me rephrase that,….I have let technology evolve so much in my life, that I actually spoke into a mic, let it determine what I was saying, so I could then paste into a text and continue to have a conversation in this way.  As I contemplated this, it seemed so impractical; so unproductive; so….pointless.

When did I stop picking up the phone?  When did I stop talking with friends?  Why have I allowed technology to sterilize some of my relationships?

…running through my mind…

A little push….

Almost every time that I run alone, I get a thought that I mull over for the short “Keith” time that I have.  If I don’t write those thoughts down pretty quickly after I run, life takes over and I forget not only where I was going with my thoughts, but also what the thought was in the first place.   I immediately wrote this one down and have been mulling it over, ever since.

Many times a comment from a friend or an acquaintance is the impetus for these thoughts.  Two Friday’s ago, an acquaintance from High School posted a quote on her Facebook page that I proceeded to dissect approximately 63 different ways over the 4 hours I have run ever since.  Here’s the quote;

If you’ve never met the devil in the road of life, it’s because you’re both heading in the same direction

If you connect with “the devil”, then leave it.  If not, insert another word that has as strong a meaning as “the devil” does for this person.  (In my opinion, they are all the same type of words, they are all something that truly sucks the life out of you)  Here are some thoughts; evil, hate, terror, the beast, the demon, the wicked, the wrathful, the spiteful, the obscene, destruction, the hellish, the out-of-touch, the hurtful, the offensive, the vile, the corrupt, the ruinous and just plain “the MEAN”.  Substitute your words and re-read the sentence.  Think about it for a bit.

The more I thought about my friend’s statement, the more I agreed with it.  The statement made me feel as though, if I were not experiencing some sort of occasional wicked adversity in my life, then I was quite possibly traveling in the same direction as this nefarious antagonist.  This agrees with me because the times in my life that I have not experienced wicked adversity; I have mostly sat on my hands and lost touch with life – let life pass me by and disconnected from what was really going on around me. 

Two days later I went for a run.  A windy, blustery day for a run.  Leaves had covered anything that did not move.  As I ran and the wind blew, it became obvious – because of these leaves – that I was not running “with” the wind.  The wind seemed to constantly be in my face, as were the leaves and everything else that summer had pasted to the ground.  However, towards the end of my run, the wind did gust from behind and it traveled just a few miles per hour faster than I was running.  I couldn’t hear anything else other than the leaves and wind moving with me. My thoughts went to a place that was of affirmation, acceptance and peace.  It felt like the whole world was moving in unison.  I felt like I was right where I should be.

It was then that I realized, during these times we experience any wicked adversity in our lives, there are those quick moments that make it worth the struggle.  A little push from somewhere – to attest that you are on the right path.

…running through my mind…