I prefer not to live in the 21st Century. Is there something wrong with me?
 

I'm 18. Don't use a mobile, I buy vintage cars, vintage radios and furniture (we are concerning the 1910's - 1920's period, here). I couldn't care less about social media or what a 'Twitter' is. I despise seeing men and women dressed casually in the street and how everyone looks so unhealthy now. I dress and speak very 'old fashioned'.The early 1900's evokes an odd sense of nostalgia or something similar to it. I find it weird and anti-social how people stare like imbeciles at a handheld brick as if it were a voluptuous woman and fail to physically communicate with each other. When it comes to assignments, I will often hand-write them.

Technology in particular stresses me out badly, especially those relying on connectivity or computerization. I prefer analog and people find me weird, saying how modern technology is so great while I am suffering. It is difficult to find 'vintage' items now a days. It feels like the world (meaning the world of old) has ended and I am having to salvage old relics in order to feel comfortable. Modern buildings literally make me feel sick. My University has some relic partitions (being that it was built in 1921) but the majority of it has become modernized. The plain white atmosphere with computers everywhere makes me feel ill. In some ways, I feel like a walking ghost.

I am not disliking of change, in particular, since I have always hated the modern era and find everything surreal, ugly, and weird. Occasionally I will cry about it, because it makes me feel depressed. As the world becomes more modernized and vintage items decrease in number, I feel more depressed and chaotic about the matter.

You sound like an old soul. Embrace it. I am the same way, I more gravitate to the 40-60's. I have a vintage rocking chair on my porch where I like to read books.I still like to go to the library and check out them out. What's this Nook and online reading everyone is doing? Rubbish. lol

Even being raised in the 80-90's was so different than now. When someone liked you, they wrote you hand letters. Calling someone on a telephone came with effort.

On the same token, I don't mind technology. I love how you can communicate with people all over the world. I met so many wonderful friends and have learned so much from them. Culturally too, gotta take the good with the bad. :smile:

I personally feel as if technology is both a blessing and a curse. I also feel like I am an old soul and find it difficult to "keep up" with the latest technology trends. I can relate to feeling deeply sad when I see people glued to their handheld devices out in public instead of actually communicating with each other. I understand if you're sending a quick message to someone because you are waiting to meet up with them, but when the entire experience is people looking at their phones....it's really saddening to me :icon_frown:. I want to have real conversations and look people in the eyes. Make a real connection.

I'm also drawn to vintage things, especially old medical devices. I greatly enjoy browsing antique shops and often feel a sense of "this feels familiar to me" and wonder if objects could talk what kind of stories would they tell of days of old. :smile:

I'm not sure how to help you with your depression though. I'm sure you already do this but perhaps keep something vintage on you at all times to help you feel closer to the time period you feel you belong to.

What I cannot stand is how people think I am the 'weird' one, or to 'grow up' - because I refuse to purchase a silly handheld contraption, because I do not believe that the internet is vital, because I refuse to buy a now air tight, ugly car with no physical connections between the steering components but computerized systems that can be hacked or get a blue screen at any time while I'm driving at 50 MPH. I feel so uncomfortable just getting a taxi because I feel like I am stepping into some kind of space craft lit up from the inside, and find it bizarre how people are fine with these things.

Eg. people will state things such as ''come on, it's the 21st Century now!'', ''you will get fired for using a typewriter in an office because it is inefficient!'' or ''your clothes and mannerisms are really out dated, if you were more fashionable then you would look much better!'' plus the usual ''technology is great, look how everything is cool looking and you have the internet/computers everywhere, including your thermostat, car and workplace! It's the future!''

I hate having to use ATM's. What happened to going to the bank and asking for money? Can I even do that anymore? I find it so anti social.
Same with those robotic/computerized cashiers. They do not talk back to you. I also have to worry about robots taking over careers making humans redundant. We're already less individualized today as it is.

I do try, but get the occasional remarks..

I understand exactly how you feel.

I loved reading your perspectives. You sound very grounded in your desire for dignity, authentic humanity and connections, and enduring and meaningful substance in your world. You articulate very well those aspects of our full humanity that many cultures have compromised even as material standards of living (measured by mortality rates, real income, incremental legal progress for women and minorities, and accumulation of stuff) have apparently improved over the last century.

Yet the zeitgeist of this era is so eroded of dignity, humanity, authentic connection, and enduring and meaningful substance that I can't help but think that you totally have the right of it...you are just seeing more clearly than most because you have not drunk the kool-aid yet.

You have clearly not been indoctrinated into the current paradigm which says you must pimp yourself out from the get-go (or early on) to whomever you "date" and that this is the sum total of your worth as a woman...provided you pump yourself full of hormones so as to be on offer at all times with "no responsibility" for the revolving door of partners who will eagerly partake in mindless copulation over a lifetime of this total rubbish.

Instead, rejecting this viscerally repulsive and yet coldly impersonal scene, you actually seek real connection...and you seek that in all your human interactions, even just passing ones at the bank or on the street. I totally get this, and I completely agree. Don't give your power away, and don't sell yourself short, that's for certain. The rest of society (not all, but most) will be all too eager to do that for you, and you'll have to stand strong in your beliefs regardless if they're in fashion or what have you.

Technology is just a tool, but you are right that -- like business, power, sex, money and other material things desired under the dominant paradigm by the already dominant majority around the globe --
technology too has become worshipped, fetishised, and idolised. Currently we are many of us enslaved and addicted to some or even all of these things.

At the very real expense of our core humanity.

There is hope for a future...but it will need to be a wholly different future than the future that is just like today. It will be a future that is more like what you value from past eras...a future built upon the dignity, humanity, authentic connection, and enduring and meaningful substance you value...

Where technology, business, sex, money, and other material things are no longer fetishised and worshipped like gods...but where these things serve humanity and individuals equally in balanced, sustainable, and loving ways.

Where we are no longer slavishly addicted to these things at the expense of our core humanity...where we live with the values you value rather than pimping ourselves out to our insatiable addictions, which always tend toward infinity (never satisfied) and always take us away from Spirit rather than toward Spirit.

Where most of all...we simply take the time to know and love one another as people and as friends...

Peace & blessings
and much love and light :hug3:
7L

I really agree with the sentiments of this thread... but have to ask, why was it moved from health to reincarnation? Is everyone who doesn't go along with every technological "advance" automatically an old soul, and everyone who does go along with it a new one? Don't really get it, I'm afraid.

There are plenty of health related reasons to be wary of tech, for example wifi is still highly debatable when it comes to safety and linked to cancer cases, and chronic pain in many people. I feel like moving this thread unnecessarily buries valid concerns that people may have about it.

Thanks for your consideration.

DebraBlume, in the 1990's I loved computer games and the internet. Everyone thought I was a "geek". No one understood computers back then.
Now everything has changed once computer illiterate people suddenly are on Facebook with using smartphones.
I don't see a need for smartphones or any modern gadget, ect it's unecessary. Also it's bothersome, and insecure.
I'm not going into details here but I'm more old school technology and I like old fashioned phones, old cars, phone boxes, ect.
I even prefer old steam engines.
Most people assume technology is progress but it isn't.

I loved reading your post, you are definitely not alone!!
I can handle using the 'modern stuff', I have a huge book collection and I'm proud of it, I write stuff down instead of using an electronic version, mobile phones drive me mad and I love vintage things as well, my house is full of vintage stuff that I use as everyday things. Be proud of it, don't feel bad if technology stresses you out, it's not natural, plain and simple...